The photographs of still lifes in the frames that simulate paintings of Caravaggio, Cotan, Zurbaran, Pareda and others are not the reproductions of the paintings, but photographs of completed three-dimensional artificial models that are arranged exactly as the original paintings. I am raising a problem of a concept of similarity by photographing the three-dimensional model instead of the painting; the simulacrum of the painter’s setting of still lifes that is actually a new “original”. By that, I establish a radical distinction to the reproduction that originates from the two-dimensional painting memorandum. I proceed from the matter of copy to the shape of simulacrum where, according to Baudrillard it is about not only imitation or duplication, but also about the substitution of reality with the signs of reality, which questions the difference between the genuine and counterfeited, which is preserved in the context of illusion. With the renewed version of the three-dimensional model in the two-dimensionality of the photograph, the abyss on the passage of dimensions is made in which the absence is revealed as an essential distinction. What is left is an appearance that superficially simulates similarity, which is vanishing with the intuitive logic when comprehending the photographs.

 
 

Installation view

 

 
 

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Canestro di Frutta, 1596,
lightjet print, frame, wall color, glass, 66 x 86 cm

 

 
 

Juan Sanches Cotan: Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, ca. 1600,
lightjet print, frame, wall paint, glass, 93 x 112 cm

 

 
 

Francisco de Zurberan: Still Life, 1633,
lightjet print, frame, wall paint, glass, 79 x 125 cm

 

 
 

Antonio de Pereda: Still Life with Walnuts, 1634,
c-print, frame, wall paint, 27 x 27 cm

 

 
 

Francisco de Zurberan: Cup of Water and a Rose on a silver Plate, ca. 1630,
c-print, frame, wall paint, 30 x 45 cm

 

 
 

Juriaen van Streeck : Still Life with fruit, 1664,
c-print, frame, wall paint, 37 x 35 cm

 

 
 

Hendrik van Streeck : Still Life with fruit and Chinese porcelain, c. 1680,
c-print, frame, wall paint, 58 x 51 cm

 

 
 

Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts: Trompe l'oeil with open cabinet, 1653,
c-print, frame, wall paint, 117 x 104 cm

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