Post Mortem

Death, that means the end of life... Death is - maybe - natural for animals, not for (thinking, conscious) people. Death means violence against life, the transformation of the human body into cadaver.
Bertok has been known for his uncompromising approach. The body, as his central subject, has been put in prison (Prisons), subjected to sadomasochistic rituals (Omen, 999, 23, Stigmata), and placed in a crematorium (Visitors), as well as other similarly marginalized or taboo environments.
Death Will Come With Your Eyes is a poem written by Italian poet Cesare Pavese shortly before he committed suicide in 1950.
In my dreams I often feel ache and tingle, even though the physical sensation of pain is absent. It seems like I still can't accept the fact that sooner or later I won't be able to feel anything whatsoever and that my self and my body will eventually irrevocably split.
We could say that the two most important aspects of Bertok`s work are Bataillian transgressiveness and he paraphrasing of religious iconography.
The eye of the beholder is confronted with his worst nightmares, because Bertok depicts human body which is painful, beaten, bleeding, dead, decomposed, frozen, post mortem. The confrontation with such bodies could be horrifying
After several years of dealing with corpses I decided to donate my own body – that will in the near or far future transform into a corpse as well – to the local Institute of Anatomy. I obtained my own serial number under which my case – or how ever would this relationship be named – is being conducted.
By focusing on the dead body as a motif Bertok questions the socially unacceptable notions surrounding the meanings and representations of death, of what is allowed, decent and appropriate to be observed, and how
I simply can't see myself in the unnatural form of becoming a whole and untouched corpse that will for number of years be drowned in formaldehyde, in the darkness of stainless coffin. On the other hand the thought of cutting, slicing and chopping my joints causes some inevitable blunt tingling similar to the tingling from my dreams.
Dead, cut and frozen.
Frozen head with bload and ice
head with covered eyes and ice in the ear
Portrait of a frozen dead human body with closed eyes
Portrait of a frozen dead human body with frozen eye
Portrait of a frozen head with frozen mouth
head of a dead man
human brain floating in formaldehyde
frozen head under the crape

POST MORTEM

Miha Colner & Jasna Jernejšek: Violence, Death and Decay

The question that arises when we are looking at Bertok’s post-mortem photographs is what is it that we are actually looking at. To say that it is dead body/corpse is to fall short of the social implication and the social dimension of the photograph. By focusing on the dead body/corpse as a motif Bertok questions the socially (un)acceptable notions surrounding the meanings and representations of death; of what is allowed, decent and appropriate to be observed, and how. In this sense, Bertok is similar to other contemporary photographers who likewise depict death and the dead/dying body such as Jeffrey Silverthorne, Rudolf Schäfer, Andres Serrano, Joel-Peter Witkin. The artist enables his audience to see not only what is concealed, but considering one’s own death, also what is impossible. Graphic detail of faces and other frozen body parts of elderly people, partly showing signs of decomposition and decay, as in the series Post Mortem (2007-2010); a dead baby floating in formaldehyde in Red (2009), a series that reminds of a cabinet of curiosities; or bodies burning while being cremated in the series Visitors (2004-2010).

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