"Fest" is one of several works by Mikkel McAlinden in the Møller Collection

The photograph is a staged scene featuring the artist and five friends. They are posing as three couples—two couples in the first room and one in the background of the innermost room.

The image is saturated with symbolism, and McAlinden juggles references to both popular culture and art history. The couples in the photograph are dressed in white and red—like Edvard Munch’s couple in *The Dance of Life* (1899–1900), depicted on a postcard on the wall to the left. Inside the cabinet on the right is another postcard featuring Munch’s “The Vampire” (1893). McAlinden’s photograph shows, as in “The Vampire,” the woman’s fiery red hair draped over the man’s body and her bare arm embracing him. There is dramatic tension between the figures, underscored by the scythe—a symbol of death—hanging above the door. The charged atmosphere is lightened with humor through pop-culture references: a pair of bright red boxing gloves for the man on the right and a Mickey Mouse balloon floating up toward the ceiling.

**

While paintings such as “Koloni” (1994, not in the Møller Collection) are staged and still draw their inspiration from Vermeer, “Fest” (1994) is a free interpretation of Munch. The painting is still staged, not computer-generated. With a distinctly humorous eye, McAlinden has allowed the three women in “The Dance of Life” to move within Munch’s universe. The woman in black has become the “Vampire” in the foreground on the left of the painting. The woman in red finds herself in a situation that can be interpreted both as a reversed vampire scenario—featuring a man in boxing gloves—and as a reference to “The Day After,” while through the door in the background we catch a glimpse of the woman in white alongside a “bohemian” who has slumped over a table overflowing with empty wine bottles. If we look a little more closely, we can find references to Munch (represented by postcards of “The Dance of Life” and “The Vampire”), allusions to death (the scythe on the wall), and, on the wall, Vermeer’s painting of the woman pouring milk into a bowl. Mickey Mouse is peeking down at everything that’s going on!