After marrying Daniel Spoerri, Vera Mercer joined the artistic avant-garde in early 1960s Paris; she did portraits of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Filliou, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely and, time and again, Spoerri. In parallel with her portraiture, she took pictures of the old Paris market halls shortly before they were torn down. This is where she encountered for the first time a theme that would occupy her from then on: food items such as fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, in whole or in parts – arranged into still lifes in her home studio. With her flower, fruit and animal images, Mercer takes up a place outside of contemporary art trends, harking back instead to historical models. Classical vanitas motifs such as skulls or half-melted candles serve as mementi mori – symbols of our own mortality.
