"Heaven: An Exhibition that will Break your Heart"
1999-12-09 until 2000-02-27
Tate Museum
Liverpool, , UK United Kingdom

A timely exhibition for the beginning of a new Millennium, Heaven brings together the work of a diverse group of international artists working in fashion, video, sculpture and photography. Heaven considers the appropriation of religious imagery by secular society. The current cult of beauty and the perfect body can be linked to religious dogma which equates beauty with virtue. In this exhibition the famous are graced and the glamorous are blessed: Elvis, Princess Diana and Madonna have achieved the status of saints. A selection of fashion items worn by the rich and famous are included together with a series of photographs of Graceland by Ralph Burns and sculpture by Jeff Koons. Kirsten Geisler's images of the robotic head of a woman contrast with Orlan's videos documenting the plastic surgery she has undertaken in her quest for perfection. Mariko Mori's photograph of an artificial, sun-drenched beach represents the new paradise.

Heaven will include work that transforms high art into low art and vice versa. Witty and energetic the work also considers issues about the sublime, consumerism, authorship, sexuality, nature and artifice.

Look at the Heaven web site on http://heaven.komed.de

Exhibition organised by Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Supported by IGEDO Company 1949-1999, Stadt-Sparkasse Düsseldorf, the British Council, Cologne and the Association Française d'Action Artistique, Paris.

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