Which Skull Are You? This Modern-Day Vanitas Will Send Shivers Down Yo

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Here's everything you need to know to appreciate the schadenfreude of Guy Richards Smit's comical skull portraits.

1. An acid-witted prankster who has shown his work everywhere from MoMA to the European biennial circuit, Guy Richards Smit uses his art as a stiletto to deflate pomposity wherever he sees it—even in the classic tradition of memento mori.

2. Rife with gallows humor, these artworks are part of Smit’s “Mountain of Skulls” series (exhibited at L.A.’s Charles James Gallery), which arose from his ambition to create a village’s worth of ironic skulls following a visit to an ossuary in Slovakia.

3. Ranging from watercolors to paintings, these hapless noggins poke mordant fun at our little peccadillos and other (transient) personality traits, making for a modern-day vanities that cuts close to the bone of the contemporary art lover—but, hey, ars longa, vita brevis.

4. A performance artist as well as a painter, the artist has also won over audiences through his alter-ego of Jonathan Grossmalerman (something like “big painting guy” in German), a video sensation who mocks everyone in the art world, particularly David Salle.