The Sixth Sorrow (2025)

AN EXHIBITION

The Sixth Sorrow – Sevenfold Pietà with Angel and Deviations stages a repetition of the Pietà motif across seven distinct tableaux of bleak domestic environments in the style of nature dioramas, museum period rooms, furniture warehouses, or outsized dollhouses. In each, viewers encounter a makeshift Pietà, though stripped of religious specificity: these are mother figures in general, holding their dead sons in abandoned rooms. The haggard corpses are rendered in a variety of materials—rough plaster, clay, sown-together towels—and at various stages of decomposition, suspending the scenes in uncertain timelines. Instead, we focus on the mothers: how long have they been sitting there? The Virgin’s garbs are far from saintly, fashioned using rubber gloves, recycled prom dresses, stained pajamas. The mothers’ faces, themselves reminiscent of death masks, all look eerily alike, but express ranging emotions—disbelief, resignation, spite. This is emphasized by harrowing songs emitting from each tableau, coos and aaahs playing on a dyssynchronous loop.

The six rooms culminate in an ominous-looking tower at the end of the room, fashioned entirely in a clutter of disused textiles, duvets, and curtains. A number of female characters schlepping gargantuan bags on their backs are seen approaching the tower entrance, perhaps to finally dispose of their oversized goods. Inside the tower, viewers are confronted with interior walls doused in black tar. The smell of tar engulfs the viewer, its glistening blackness producing a sense of near total, infinite darkness. In the middle stands a makeshift concrete well, its water equally black.

A final figure appears in the work: the titular angel, who hovers slightly above a pile of sandals in what appears to be a tiled backroom. Its head faces the ground with resignation; it is unclear if it is ascending or descending. We hear the angel joining the women’s lament; in fact, it seems to sing the loudest.

Jeppe Ugelvig

Tickets: On site (Adults: DKK 60,- Children u. 18: Free)

Dates & Times:
18th of January to 3rd of August 2025
(Tue–Sun from 10:00 - 16:00)

Place: Horsens Kunstmuseum, Carolinelundsvej 2, 8700 Horsens, Denmark