Pilar Albarracín portrayed herself next to a skeleton, reading a book and eating fresh grapes on a rotten sofa in the middle of an infertile land, as a re interpretation of Vanitas traditional painting. Vanitas paintings, popular specially in the Netherlands in the 16 th and 17 th C, were symbolic works showing the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits. They wanted to remind viewers of the futility of pleasure, brevity of life, and the certainty of death.
Pilar Albarracín is making a conversation piece in two levels: by re interpreting the Vanitas in Art History she is having a dialogue with the still life of the 16 th and 17 th C, while she is literally seating with the skeleton in a completely natural way. While the pictorial Vanitas showed normally only a skull, rotten fruit to symbolize decay, -among other objects-, in this photograph the artist has portrayed herself full of life eating fresh grapes, completely absorbed in her book, ignoring the skeleton who seats next to her, as a chant of life instead of a remembrance of death.