Erich Weiss's 'Can Beauty Kill?' at Liechtenstein Museum

Belgian artist Erich Weiss (born 1966 in Waregem) presented his exhibition 'Can beauty kill?' at the new Liechtenstein Museum in Vaduz from June 29 to August 19, 2001. The museum, designed by Morger, Degelo & Kerez, is described as a black pearl of colored and polished concrete. Weiss, the first artist-in-residence in this tax haven, organized a Black Party where guests wore black and watched manipulated vampire film excerpts. In the auditorium, a video showed guests against a window with an Alpine backdrop, with no artificial light, evoking Hitler's Adlerhorst in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Empty wine bottles from the party were labeled 'Cisillero del Diablo,' while full ones bore images of starlets including Eva Braun. Under a table lay posters of modern beauties like Kate Moss. The exhibition's title question, 'Can beauty kill?', was inscribed on the wall. Another video montage showed a 'blonde wild beauty' rolling in grass as supersonic planes take off and land, followed by ravens and eagles soaring. Weiss blends popular culture and everyday beauty with serious issues, creating unease. The exhibition critiques the principality's role in money laundering, as German investigators were for the first time tracing dirty money from Medellín. The question 'Can beauty kill?' in this pristine principality is described as a slow poison.