Thomas Schutte: "Mein Grab (My Grave)"

 Thomas Schutte: Mein Grab (My Grave)

Tucked away in a corner of Thomas Schutte’s exhibition at the MOMA lies a small red house and a painting to match. It’s hard to miss, but what it represents may seem unclear until closer inspection. The installation, simply titled Mein Grab (My Grave), reads; “Thomas Schutte: 16.11.1954 - 25.3.1996.” As of December 2024, the artist is still alive. 

In 1981 at just 26 years of age, Schutte tested the fates by making the bold choice to predict the date of his own death and design his own gravestone, akin to what closely resembles a bright red cartoon dog house. The simple yet recognizable “house” shape and striking crimson hue of the work read as both juvenile and confrontational, serving as a clear memento mori to anyone who may take a closer look, regardless of the viewer’s age. In other words, the ground will one day be our home.

Schutte’s piece is notably both grim and comical, a macabre display of irony over the inevitable end we will all one day meet. Memento mori (reminder of death) has been a part of human fascination since antiquity, repeatedly resurging in popular culture from medieval times to the Victorian period. After a century ravaged by brutal wars, human mortality was once again called into question in the mid-1900s, which may have had an influence on Schutte’s grave model. However, Schutte’s take on death as something to be humored and even challenged through prediction provides unique commentary on a topic that is typically sensitive/taboo. Even after Thomas Schutte has passed, his playful wit will live on in the small red house - but the date may need an edit.