In a quiet corner of the dimension of eternity, where time and place have lost their authority and colours never fade, two old friends were sitting: Robert Indiana, who carved a single word and ten numerals onto canvas, and Claes Oldenburg, who carried everyday objects into city squares and sewed everything hard into cloth until it softened.
In that luminous gallery on the other side, while they watched the objects of the world drift past like spectra, their eyes locked onto a black case gleaming in a watch workshop in Switzerland. Brought to life by the hand of the Dutch artist Loes Van Delft, the Franck Muller Vanguard Loes Van Delft Skull was looking back at them through the glass of a display case.
Robert smoothed his beard and smiled:
Look, Claes. When we were on Earth we showed people a single word, the lettering of road signs, ten numerals running from one down to zero. They took pop art for nothing but a shallow delight in consumption. Yet look at what this young woman Loes Van Delft has done. She has taken the door humanity fears most, the memento mori, and drawn it again in the boldest colours pop art has.
Claes Oldenburg looked at the thick contours on the dial, at the dynamic lines of the flames and at that mischievous skull in the middle, and nodded:
A wonderful composition, Robert. Thick lines, flames, and a skull throwing a red light out of its eyes. For centuries people painted death as a dark nightmare in a black cloak with a scythe. They hid it away in dark rooms and were afraid to speak its name. But what does pop art say? Strike even the heaviest truth onto the canvas in bold colours, and smile while looking it straight in the eye.
format_quote"Strike even the heaviest truth onto the canvas in bold colours, and smile while looking it straight in the eye."
Hasan Bekmezci
Robert stretched out on the silver grass and went on watching the world:
Because they do not know, Claes. They take death for an ending, an annihilation, a pitch-black nothing. And yet here we are, are we not? Seen from the dimension we are standing in, how clear it looks: what is this thing called death but a painter changing his canvas? Stepping out of one garment and putting on another, moving to a different frequency.
I did not line up those numerals for nothing. From one down to zero, every one of them was a stage of a lifetime; they had their colours, their weights, their order. And zero was not an annihilation but the place where the ring closes. People took LOVE for a decoration. Yet if I spread a single word across the whole surface of a canvas, it was to say that what stands behind that word covers everything.
format_quote"What is this thing called death but a painter changing his canvas? Stepping out of one garment and putting on another, moving to a different frequency."
Hasan Bekmezci
Claes pointed to the colourful flames surrounding the dial:
Exactly. Those flames on the dial are not a fire of annihilation that burns a person; on the contrary, they are an energy of transformation, one that burns away the coarse worldly shell of the soul and returns it to its own essence. The playful, fearless gaze of that skull whispers to the mortal wearing this watch on his wrist: do not be afraid, forget those dark scenarios in your mind, what awaits you is not annihilation.
Besides, I spent a lifetime softening things that were hard. I sewed a steel tap out of cloth, I raised a spoon to the length of a bridge, I made cakes out of plaster and sold them in a shop. The only thing all of it taught me is this: form is the garment of matter. When you change the garment, what is inside it does not disappear.
The artist herself has said the same thing about this skull. For her the skull signifies transformation, the beauty of endings that pave the way for fresh starts. She speaks of balancing light with darkness, and simplicity with depth, on one and the same surface.
format_quote"Those flames on the dial are not a fire of annihilation; they are an energy of transformation that burns away the coarse worldly shell of the soul and returns it to its essence."
Hasan Bekmezci
And here is where the real subtlety lies, Robert put in. When people think about death they imagine a vengeful, punishing power and are filled with dread. Yet behind this crossing there is an infinite compassion. A merciful Lord, the one who sent us into this universe and breathed these colours into our souls, is waiting for us behind that door. Death is the servant returning to his real home, to the owner of that infinite mercy. With this dial Loes Van Delft has wiped away the dark shadows; she has taken death out of the role of a phantom to be feared and turned it into a luminous change of dimension.
Claes listened to the movement ticking away inside the watch’s black tonneau case:
That flawless Franck Muller movement is counting worldly time: seconds, minutes, hours. The hour and minute hands turn because those on Earth need time. But that pop art skull on the dial stands for the truth beyond time. While the hands say your time is running out, the dial answers that where time ends it is not fear that begins but beauty.
And it says so to seventy-five people, Robert added. This watch is limited to seventy-five pieces, and every owner also receives a skull artwork signed by the artist. So the canvas strapped to the wrist has a sibling hanging on the wall.
format_quote"While the hands say your time is running out, the dial answers that where time ends it is not fear that begins but beauty."
Hasan Bekmezci
Robert leaned back, smiling:
Pop art had never gone this deep, Claes. This small canvas carried on an arm reminds a person to know the worth of the time he spends in the world, and at the same time never to fear eternity or that infinite mercy. What a tremendous synthesis of art and time.
And as the two masters went on watching the coloured light of the flames and of the cheerfully grinning skull glittering on the dial of a watch down on Earth, that sweet silence between the dimensions settled over them once more.