This special exhibition, presented in the staircase hall of the Neues Museum, offers a dialogue on the meaning of time, mortality and the connection between past and present. Contemporary art meets historical space, refers to ancient models and offers a modern adaptation of the classical reception of the myth of the Dioscuri, who walk eternally between death and life.
The two unequal twins Castor and Polydeuces – sons of the beautiful king's daughter Leda – were conceived in one night by different fathers. Castor by Leda's husband, the Spartan king Tyndareos, and Polydeuces by the god Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. While Castor is mortal, Polydeuces' father Zeus grants him immortality. The twins are known as the Dioscuri and take part in the search for the Golden Fleece and in Heracles' battle against the Amazons. When the mortal Castor was killed, Polydeuces asked Zeus to take away his immortality so that he and his twin brother could spend eternity together in Hades, the realm of the dead.