KARIN SANDER — Cauliflower, 2012

If you flip through the art-history books, you will find that a  memento mori will typically feature skulls (the most obvious reminders  of mortality), hourglasses, snuffed-out candles, and wilting flowers. They  often also contain a bunch of rotting fruits or vegetables. Those decaying  perishables signpost the passage of time and the transience of existence  very effectively. In a matter of days, you will watch life be sucked out of  them

The series was first presented in 2012 (long before Maurizio  Cattelan taped a banana to a wall at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019). As  the days go by, the fruits and vegetables on show will start to droop,  darken and rot – a metaphor for human existence, and a memento mori  if there ever was one.  Sander is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Germany. 

Having completed her university studies in Stuttgart, she won a  scholarship to the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum  of American Art in New York. In her art, Sander likes to show objects  and situations, questioning the notion of the ordinary versus the  extraordinary – and the very definition of art. Her works are in the  collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art in  New York, and she represented Switzerland at the 2023 Venice  Architecture Biennale.