Sketching Death in Art

Bodies, Dying, DeathThe art of the past reminded people of the coming end like:

Grim reaper (dried-out skeleton)Danses macabre (memento mori)Baroque Vanitas (beautiful bodies)

Chosen Subject

The theme of death as the place, where the confrontation of science and art is more reflective than anywhere else

Social BackgroundDeath has to be an integrated part of individual and social life in our societyDeath now is clean and has been removed from our life to hospitals and nursing homes

LeitmotiveAn uncomfortable subject for a great number of people, much lied about. Even in our language we often refer to people having passed away or departed rather than died.

First ImpressionsIn 1987 Hans Bankl M.D. professor of anatomic pathology invited to sketch bodies

Department of Pathology St. Poelten

ChallengeThe principal concern through the art is to imbue the publicTo make the zone of death visible

1987 - 1992A lot of pictures arise to a cycle called Body without Soul

Area of InvestigationsThe autopsy room as an artists space is standing in a long tradition which started in the 2nd half of the 11th century.

The confrontation with death as the center of artistic remarks

Working in the Autopsy room

The Dead BodyDeath seems to have become more far. Now we study discease and no longer deathDeath is regarded as a phenomenon that is not very well understood. The cadaver is still the body and already the corpse

Sitting close to the body to record the last examination and the act of autopsy

Confrontation instead of Disgust

It is hard to find a more realistic of death than in an autopsy room

There is no taboo in the art, death must be accepted

Shock is not the Focus with Blood in the Limelight

Problems of Sketching Death in Art

The artistic work is fraught with difficulties: to show something that does not exist anymore - life.

Eyewitness

An artist has to show something missing, a loss, a deficit

Analytical ConfrontationDeath is one of the taboos of our society, as is sexDeath....when it is documented, seems abstract, unreal

Body without SoulOver the last 12 years men, women and children have been portrayed in the cycle Body without Soul before the coffin finally closes

Everyone dies his own DeathThe individuality is in the flesh, the exact unexchangable condition of everyone. Only a dead person itself is a dead person

The Dying of the OthersNowbody learns about his own death, but everybody can learn about death of the others. Death is the climax of life. With death everything is gone and nothing

Temporal LifeThe temporal life, always a usual life, individual, unique, irreplaceable is a final life. It ends with death, nothing more and nothing less

Death has many faces

Age of LifeThere is a difference of life but not of the end, of the destructionDying is a natural accident

The younger the dead person is, the more death will touch the living one

Art and DeathOne of the biggest confrontations is the studying of the human body. There is a vast difference between a living and a lifeless body, the latter is missing something - the elan vital

The last PrintTo record the last attempt of human individuality before the onset of final decayto make a last print before the body will be cremated or decomposes

The Taboo of DeathThere is a need to avoid any confrontation because people are afraid of deathThe collective repression of death has a far reaching consequence (quality of life)

The Color of DeathThe fable world of the interior of the bodyThe brilleance of the colorThe landscape of organsThe point of view of the art

New YorkThe Mount Sinai Medical CenterMount Sinai School of Medicine

1992 - 1993Alan L. Schiller M.D. professor and chairman of Pathology gives his permission to paint various aspects of autopsy pathology

Alan L. Schiller M.D.

Mount Sinai MorgueCreating a large painting (triptychon) to grace the entrance of the autopsy suite of the Hans Popper Department of the Atran Laboratory

Sketch of the painting

Mount Sinai MorgueThe inception to create the large painting on canvas was in november 1994 at the Michael Kisslinger Gallery Soho/New York. It took over a month till the work was finished

The paint is dark-blue and the color refers to coldness, emptyness and peace

CoatsMore than 20 coats were needed to get the brilliance of color and the beauty of the appearances in the interior of the body

Working at NightBy day in the harsh lighted autopsy room at Mount Sinai Medical Center, by night in the empty gallery surrounded by a dark room and the paintings of Body Without Soul

Difficulties with the ArtworksA taboo is hurtThe confrontation is painfulShock instead of happiness

The Uncertain Certainty

At the beginning of life death has already started.

The three Parts of the Tripthychon

Left PartThe acrylic painting shows the rigidity of fingers and arm

Middle PartThe deep black inside the body is contrasted with the glistening reds and oranges of the organs

Right PartThe expression of the face The sufferings are overThe worn-out,

The Uncovering of the Picture

Unnatural DeathHacked to DeathJunk Objects New York in 1992/1993

Serial Photo ProductionParts of collected junk objects in the streets of N.Y. City like shop-window dummies, dinnerwagons, bodybags ...were the impression for this cycle.

Someone is at the wrong place at the wrong time

Thrown away like the life, objects tell the story of its works and days

A hunt for circumstances, a hunt for how, where, when, why, a reconstruction of the scene of a crime

Sometimes a whole biography is there in the cast

The wounds and scars gathered in a lifetime

The way people die is a reflexion of the way they live

The rich die differently from the poor, the ignorant from the educated

Death remarks the end of the physical body

The Final The Death of the Self

Diagnosis

I have to dieYou have to dieAll have to die

TherapyConfrontation for everyoneThe Taboo of death is a deceptionWe have to study death and not only disease

CURRICULUM VITAE1957 Harald Koeck born in Salzburg/Austria1981 1986 Salzburg International Academy of Fine Arts - graphic arts Salzburg University of Salzburg ArthistorySalzburg Exhibition Art Gallery WeihergutSalzburg Craft of Illusion drawings for the book of Gerhard Amanshauser

1981 - 1986Salzburg Exhibition at the House of ArtSalzburg 100 Years Spring Palor at the House of ArtVienna Exhibition at the Theatre of CourageVienna Academy of Fine art Friedensreich HundertwasserUlm (Germany) Kornhaus GalleryBudapest (Hungary) Kilato Gallery

1988 Vienna Stubenbastei GallerySt. Plten General Hospital - the project Body without Soul at the Department of Pathology Professor Hans Bankl1989Hamburg (Germany) Airport Gallery

1990Vienna Exhibition Body without Soul Austrian Culture Center Palais PalffyMelbourne (Australia) Gryphon Gallery Unversity of MelbourneVienna Exhibition Body without Soul Medical Center

1991Vienna documentary video Body without Soul and presentation at the Center Auditorium of the Medical University1992 Vienna Exhibition at the Federal Museum of Pathology and Anatomy (Narrenturm)Eisenstadt Exhibition Museum of Austrian Culture (Death Triumphant)

1993New York City (USA) - project Unnatural Death Homicides, Suicides and AccidentsNew York City Mount Sinai Medical Center Pathology Prof. Alan Schiller (paintings and drawings in the morgue)New York Exhibition Gallery Kunstschalter Kassel (Germany) coffin installation at the Museum of Sepulchral Culture

1994New York City Death in Art - guest lecture University of New York Fashion Institute of TechnologyNew York City Triptychon Mount Sinai Morgue wall painting at the entrance of the Hans Popper Department of PathologyNew York City Body without Soul Michael Kissinger Gallery

1995Vienna Exhibition Congress of Medical Ethical General Hospital of ViennaVienna Red Ribbon art installation Children with AIDS Gerngross store1996Belarus (Russia) Little Blue Man Rememberence 10 Years CernobylVienna Exhibiton Unnatural Death in New York City photographics

1997Vienna Production of the movie Thoughts about Death1998Vienna Art therapy project for children with drug problems1999 Purkersdorf Art teacher at a privat college

Sketching Death in ArtEnd