It happens to the best of us

IT HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US (2025) – a 2 × 3 meter work made entirely of fresh leaves – unfolds its materiality over the duration of the exhibition. What begins vibrant and full of color inevitably ages, dries, and eventually decays. The process of deterioration becomes not just visible, but the very medium of the work. As the artist notes with irony: “They age more and more until they finally decay. Like me – and you.”

The piece is a portrait of an ageing woman and reflects on the cultural ambivalence surrounding ageing. While men are traditionally perceived as gaining authority, wisdom, or even attractiveness as they grow older, women are often subjected to the opposite narrative: they lose—following Susan Sontag’s observation—social visibility and perceived value once they no longer fit the capitalist standards of youth and beauty.

In IT HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US, this culturally and visually entrenched double standard collides with the natural life cycle of the leaves. Decay is neither hidden nor corrected but deliberately aestheticized and made explicit. The work invites viewers to reconsider how ageing, beauty, and transience are perceived—beyond patriarchal gazes and fleeting ideals.