ArtCenter College of Design announces Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits, a site-specific installation debuting a significant triptych from phtographer, artist and alumnus Matthew Rolston’s most recent series of compelling photographic images.

On view in ArtCenter’s South Campus Oculus space – at the apex of the new Mullin Transportation Design Center – the exhibition, curated by Julie Joyce, Director of ArtCenter Galleries, is conceived of as not just an homage to the accomplished mid-career artist, but also as the introduction of an evocative new body of work, one that addresses intertwined narratives of human existence, beauty and the grotesque, and the power of art to connect with the beyond.

Created in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, the three photographs presented at ArtCenter comprise the artist’s triptych, which depicts two mummified children flanking an elderly adult, representing the dichotomies of sacred and secular, youth and age, life and death. Vanitas furthers Rolston's exploration of beauty, mortality, and the cultural histories embedded in portraiture.

ArtCenter’s presentation of Vanitas marks the launch of a multi-venue series of exhibitions across the city of Los Angeles showcasing Rolston’s Vanitas project and coincides with the release of a limited-edition monograph published by Nazraeli Press.

Matthew Rolston
Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits

The presentation of Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits at ArtCenter is one in a series of four exhibitions across the city of Los Angeles, simultaneously presenting different aspects of Rolston’s Vanitas project.

For more information about Matthew Rolston and Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits, please visit: https://www.vanitasproject.com

Concurrent with Rolston's Vanitas exhibition, select works by Rolston’s may be seen on view as part of the group exhibition Queer Lens: A History of Photography at the Getty Center, curated by Paul Martineau, Curator of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.