PARIS.- Olivier Lorquin, president of the Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, in October 2009 appointed Patrizia Nitti as art director of the institution. The first exhibition to be curated by her is « C’est la vie ! – Vanités de Caravage à Damien Hirst » ( That’s Life ! – Vanities from Caravaggio to Damien Hirst). It will present about 160 works : paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, jewelry, objects… Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull, the first icon of the 21st century is symptomatic of the resurgence of interest in the Vanities, brought into the contemporary art world and seen everywhere: books, record covers, design, jewels… As a metaphor of the spiritual splintering and of the world’s break-up, of a globalized planet prey to the ecological menace, powerless to contain the ferment of ideas it curtails, a parable of