sterile

1. Does "sterile" in the following context mean "pure" or "nonproductive and useless"?

2. Does "reflection" here mean "contemplation"?

Does "which always already implies death in life" mean "art, in life, implies death" i.e. "art, during our life, reminds us of death"?

Context: Summing up Freud’s view, Sarah Kofman says that [n]arcissism lulls one into sterile self-contemplation or, in the case of collective narcissism, lulls society into contemplation of its own values: art as ‘reflection’ is conservative [...] Erected to conquer death, art as a ‘double’, like any double, turns itself into an image of death. The game of art is a game of death, which always already implies death in life, as a force of saving and inhibition.