Six Feet Under: Autopsy of Our Relationship to the Dead

Six Feet Under collects an international array of contemporary and historical artworks, some dating back to the sixteenth century, that take on the topic of death and decay. In art, death is a universal subject. In contemporary art, two extremes can be determined: art either reclaims the rituals of death--which have strayed from organized religion to professional service providers and the media--and then re-presents or reconstructs them; or, it repositions the unwelcome corpse back into our field of vision, reminding us in a direct way that our physical existence continues after death. Gathering work across continents and centuries, but focusing mainly on contemporary art, this volume focuses on key themes like the burial of children (from Albert Anker to Teresa Margolles); cadavers (from Félix Vallotton to Andres Serrano); the death of the artist (from Ferdinand to Gianni Motti); and coffins (from Ferdinand Hodler to Joe Scanlan).