Death, Wellcome Collection, Seven magazine review With a major change of pace, the rhythms of dance give way to the violence of war. Otto Dix's etchings series Der Krieg (1924) appear alongside their inspiration, Goya's unflinching depictions of Peninsular War barbarism, The Disasters of War. As a machine-gunner on the Western Front, Dix was witness to industrial-scale slaughter and, in Stormtroops Advance under Gas Attack, the inhumanity of menacing soldiers is emphasised by their ghoulish gas masks. Freudian conflict between the human instincts for life (Eros) and death (Thanatos) is played out in the next room. In a set of Victorian postcards, amorous couples morph - with a bit of optical illusion - into skulls. Ivo Saliger's surgeon makes a semi-erotic bid to save a naked lady from dying, and symbolist Félicien Rops explores the potentially sexual nature of St Theresa's religious ecstasy. Sadly, the show's final section descends into free-for-all, a sprawling look at how different cultures bury, mourn and commemorate their dead. Papier-mâché Day of the Dead skeletons from Mexico appear beside Tibetan death masks and an Indonesian tau tau effigy (a grave guardian). One is confronted, too, by a samey display of skulls and skull motifs: I appreciate that such symbolism for death is universal, but if I'd wanted a trip to Camden, I'd have stayed on the bus. Far from confounding or frightening, skull iconography has been rendered rather passé by the Goth movement, and I found it hard to engage with the never-ending selection here, even the ancient Incan examples from Peru. Based on one collector's arbitrary gatherings, this show hasn't anything over-archingly erudite to say about man's complex relationship with death. Though it is fun compiling one's own fantasy death collection: mine including Tutankhamun's tomb, the Terracotta Army, a body cast or two from Pompeii, and Zurbarán's St Francis in Meditation. Back in the real world, the main problem with this show is its failure to consider man's perennial longing to cheat death altogether: whether by becoming immortal, coming back to life or floating off as souls. For a biomedical institution as committed to improving and lengthening human life as the Wellcome, this is a glaring omission. Some might say a terminal one. To Feb 24, wellcomecollection.org