“The Last Day of Pompeii” was made in the summer of 2016, during the Trump presidential campaign, Brexit, and incidences of terror around the globe in a year that only worsened for many.
Here, a life-size reproduction of Karl Bruyllov’s monumental painting of the explosion of Mount Vesuvius is installed on the windows and doors of a glass atrium, visible from both sides. Architecturally this is a liminal space, an intermediate threshold between inside and outside worlds, a space to dread the imminent collapse of the world as we know it. Exhibited again in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, “The Last Day of Pompeii” literalizes this fear of going outdoors.
