Moments in Time

In an ever-changing world, artists capture moments in time, thereby creating something lasting. In this way, they preserve the fleeting and foster a sense of community.

The enduring aspect of transience—known in Latin as *vanitas* (transience, vanity)—is also expressed in the genre of portraiture. In a portrait, a single moment becomes something timeless, a form of cultural memory. Never neutral like a photograph, the image bears witness to the staging of the model as well as to the artist’s interpretation, a manifestation of emotional closeness between painter, model, and owner. It marks the presence of a person who is, after all, absent. A static work conveys something alive and changeable: the beauty captured in the image, which is fleeting. The visible exterior also reveals the invisible interior.

The exhibition *Moments of Time* explores the concept of vanitas through a selection of miniatures. Here, the paradox makes the portrait the ideal medium for reflecting on time and memory: melancholy, longing, and the proximity of death point to the fragility of life. Adorned figures represent beauty and allure, but also vanity and mortality. When they hold flowers or fruits in their hands, these objects directly point to their own transience, their special symbolism, and even to the scent that cannot be conveyed visually. The same applies to the vivid depiction of musical instruments, whose sounds quickly fade away, and of sculptures that are not alive. Letters, sheet music, and books embody the products of human relationships that are fleeting and stand for the faded voices of their creators.

The natural cycle of life finds its counterpart in the two-part work *Sigrid* (1930/2009) by artist Karin Sander (b. 1957 in Bensberg). Sigrid’s portrait as a child—a still from a Pathé film from 1930—and as an old woman, each playing with a ball, combines the modernist readymade with the classical vanitas motif in the miniature portrait.

Curated by Sonja Remensberger