I go to death, knight stout in battle
Through fighting in field I win the flower
I have been taught no fight that could beat death
And so I tell you I go to death
I wende to dede, 15th century, trad. Collete de Venoix (Tully McCombs)
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Vado Mori means “I prepare myself to die”, and is a genre of Latin poems from the 13th century where representatives of various social classes complain, mostly in two verses, about the fact that they will soon have to die. It was supposed to show that death was inevitable for everyone, even for a king or a pope. But as I was quarantined in May 2020, this fate doesn’t seem so inevitable. There was leaders of various countries urging us to go back to work to save the economy, companies selling masks at hefty price when nurses and doctor badly needed them, peoples on social medias who were spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories… It was like being in a culture of death, a monster that was devouring his own children to keep his life going.
The idea for Vado Mori came from this feeling of hopelessness that I was experiencing at the time. I wanted to make a modern version of the religious altarpiece, but this time centered on Death and its companions: the Leader, the Guard, the Businessman and the Fool. In my Vado Mori, death is not a curse for humanity, it’s a deity to worship, a way to gain more power or money. The only ones who are going to die are the anonymous, the ones who can’t complain and don’t have the choice.
THE LEADER
THE FOOL
THE GUARD
THE BUSINESSMAN
DEATH
CLAY RENDERS
