EUPEN.- For their exhibition Museum of Vanities, which takes place from 17 May to 20 August at the IKOB – Museum of Contemporary Art, Jerry Frantz – the notorious inventor of absurd persons and projects – and Sali Muller – the sensitive analyst of habits of vision and perception – have created a series of works of art that fearlessly respond to the work of the other artist, entirely in the sense of a culture of dissent.

On display are current works by the two Luxembourgian artists many of which were developed specifically for this exhibition. With reference to this year’s theme at the IKOB – resentment – Jerry Frantz and Sali Muller focus on such concepts as terrorism, nationalism, selfishness and, ultimately, finiteness.

The double meaning contained in the word “vanity” of fatuous self-love and evanescence is manifest in a “deadly splendor” with regard to his installations, says Jerry Frantz. Along with his Atelier subversif, a cabinet with antique furniture, explosives and other suspicious equipment, he also exhibits an air-to-air missile of the AIM-9 Sidewinder type from the ordnance of the Luxembourg Armed Forces whose warhead has been gilded by the artist.

Sali Muller constitutes the psychological counterpart in this double exhibition with works that stimulate reflection and, quite significantly, consist of mirrors which for the most part do not reflect images and have been treated by the artist in various ways – whether by removing layers with sandpaper or applying layers of silicon, as with her work Crystal Clear from 2017.

The show was first developed by the curator Maria Rus Bojan in collaboration with the artists. It has now been elaborated by museum director Frank-Thorsten Moll for the spaces of the IKOB as a succession of installations and cabinets that convey haunting and profound insights into the human psyche.

Parallel to Museum of Vanities, the IKOB is presenting from its collection the paintings by the Düsseldorf artist Horst Keining. His recent works appear as poetically informed views into the display windows of shops or boutiques and present thoughtful insights into the globalized visual culture of everyday life. By painting in a space-encompassing, surface-covering and bleeding-edged manner, Keining creates individual pictures each of which constitutes its own mental space. Viewed together, these images constitute an œuvre which indicates how the world of goods and brands impacts upon our perception and how impalpable the conveyed messages often are. But Keining is someone who handles these messages not only thoughtfully but also playfully; he doesn’t evaluate reality but instead responds to it with a subtle treatment.