The real and somber exhibition "I Am As You Will Be" at Cheim & Read is amazing. I use the word "real" in this context to describe something substantial, examined and profound. I applaud Cheim & Read for cultivating a show of tremendous visual exploration across extremely personal and philisophical ground.
The show explores artist's treatment of mortality; the skull being of course both metaphor and actuality. (We each have a skull inside of us, it is too delicate for us to think about. It is it's own time-bomb ticking, waiting to become all that we are. ) The work is in almost all cases intimate and personal. There is no way to consider death without an (unexpected) intimacy.
Exhibition up September 20 - November 3, 2007. Works at top are, in order: Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas, Adam Fuss.
