Common denominator
Art in the ruins of modernity
In William Turner’s "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On" (1840), sublime, unrelenting nature meets the revolting behaviour of men treating other men as refundable commodities. Images of black bodies at sea echo those of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean today. The funeral landscape can also be read as an allegory for a wrecked planet, brought to a state of disrepair – some scientists are predicting – by the exploitation and combustion of human and natural resources. The thematic focus [...]
