Sam Talyor-Wood - A Little Death , 2002 (Video art)

Sam Taylor Wood, A Little Death, 2002, DVD on plasma screen, 103 x 64cm, 4 mins and 30 seconds

I first saw this piece of video presentation at the National Gallery in London for a touring exhibition "The stuff of Life" and was quite mesmerised by it. This work is one of the modern interpretation of the seventeenth centurty Dutch still life vanitas-theme paintings. Other than the errie but poignant sight of decay accelerated before our eyes, I find this piece very meaningful and impactful in depicting the process of life after death, particulary how life comes from death and how death is so dynamic and lively.

Apparently there is sexual reading behind the work too. The title "a little death" is a phrase coined by the nineteenth century French intellectual Georges Bataille to describe orgasm. Further encouragement to a sexual reading is provided by the choice of animal. A hare often an explicity symbol of lust (as is a case in other of Talyor-Wood's works).

Mysteriously, the out of season suggestively looking peach that accompanied the hare was unaffected by decay during the nine weeks video shoot.