Unstill Life

Until Sun 26 Jan 2025 View Venues, Dates & Times

Unstill Life takes a look at a crucial aspect of the history of still-life painting: the expansion of empire, global trade and consumerism.
The emergence of Dutch still lifes coincided with the maritime transportation of colonial ‘rarities’ which were collected by the elite. These included gemstones and precious metals, silks and spices, animals, shells and ‘exotic’ fruits. 
But celebratory paintings of this wealth and abundance obscured the brutal conquest of territory and suppression of local populations that was also taking place as global trade expanded...
Subtitled Global Mobility And Consumerism In Still Life Paintings, this fascinating exhibition challenges the viewer to reconsider the still-life genre, prompting the question ‘At what cost did the objects in these images get here?’

IMAGE: Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606 - 1683/4, Still Life with a Nautilus Cup, Leiden, 1632 Oil on panel

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