Mädchen und Tod c. 1941

Karl Wiener made this collage, “Mädchen und Tod,” probably sometime in the 1930s or 40s. It looks like he used scissors and glue on paper – analog tools! I imagine Wiener snipping away at old magazines, arranging and rearranging the images. He positions a woman in a corset alongside an anatomical drawing of a skeleton. What's the conversation between them? The woman’s poised and glamorous, but her shadow looks like a tombstone. Then there’s the skeleton standing to the side. I wonder if Wiener was thinking about desire and mortality when he made this work? Maybe he’s thinking about the way beauty fades, or how advertising preys on our insecurities. There’s definitely a Surrealist vibe here that’s similar to Hannah Hoch or John Heartfield. It makes me think about what we are willing to do to be beautiful. Artists inspire each other across time – it’s an ongoing conversation!