Death as a cosmic trace of life

Video Art Exhibition by Sol Lyfond

In his multimedia works, the video artist deals with the meaning of death for life by understanding death not only as the end but also as the beginning of life. In many ways, the results of scientific research are artistically transformed in such a way that artworks and their staging create museum-like spaces in which emptiness and abundance, end and beginning can be experienced sensually as a paradoxical unity.

Sol Lyfond strives to combine objective observation and subjective imagination and, as a result, achieve a comprehensive aesthetic perception. For example, he is interested in the factual documentation of an inconspicuous caterpillar’s transformation into a magnificent butterfly. In this process of metamorphosis, he simultaneously sees a symbol for the existential crises in our lives.

The work "Forms of Thinking", 2011, shows that especially at the beginning of brain development the dying of nerve cells is of great importance: the dying of superfluous cells and the amplification of frequently used synapses creates the highly complex network of the brain, which can be described as a cosmos, a microcosm, in the human body.

The title of the exhibition goes back to the 16th century alchemist, physician, mystic, lay theologian and philosopher Paracelsus, who universalistically grasped man from the macrocosm and described a fulfilled life as "a life that traces a cosmic trace". Sol Lyfond extends and varies this thought: " Death as a cosmic trace in life". "For even in our lifetime death can leave a microcosmic trace of the macrocosm in us, a shimmering lifeline in which finiteness and infinity interpenetrate in a paradoxical and creative way".

Scientific videos and simulations are further developed into video projections and spatial installations; objects and light boxes appear as relics of the processes the artist has previously captured with his camera, conveying a laboratory-like atmosphere. The result is meditative, mysterious spaces in which the paradoxical proximity of life and death can be sensually experienced and which invite us to reflect on these ancient themes of life and death in a new, inspiring way.

In the exhibition, 21 works from the years 2003 - 2011 are on display, including new works created especially for the Museum for Sepulchral Culture.

Sol Lyfond, born 1965, lives and works in Cologne. In the course of his artistic activity he has been able to organize exhibitions, performances, lectures, television appearances and participation in art fairs in numerous countries in Germany and abroad (including the USA, South Korea, Poland, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria).

www.lyfond.de

>> Exhibition catalogue at the shop