BEFORE AND A LITTLE AFTER

Until his death in November 2021, Jørgen Haugen Sørensen worked on a new exhibition at Hans Alf Gallery. In "Before and a little after", which opens on April 1, you can experience the very last works from the master's hand in combination with a selection of significant works from recent years of Haugen Sørensen's long and impressive career.

In July 2021, it was finally possible for us to return to Pietrasanta. Since 2013, when we started the collaboration with Jørgen, we have been used to visiting the mythical artist town in Tuscany several times a year, but due to the Corona epidemic, Jørgen's failing health and the necessary isolation from the outside world, almost 2 years had passed since we last set foot in Jørgen and Eli's home in Solaio high above the Ligurian Sea.

We had primarily gone to Tuscany to see Jørgen's large exhibition at the Prato Museum north of Florence - a tour de force in his gloomy and brutal universe spread over three very different exhibition spaces in the city - but also to plan his next project with us. Jørgen was debilitated, but in good spirits. A long course of illness had left its clear traces in his physique, but nothing was wrong with his head. We enjoyed a glass in the shade on the veranda under the mighty bamboos, chatting as we used to, and Jørgen and Eli showed us some of the new works he had worked on: A beautiful, square relief entitled "They are hiding", as Jørgen intended to have cast in bronze, and a small series of sculptures, all of which were largely finished. One work in particular, a sculpture he called "Monumental Override", made a huge impression on us, and we subsequently kept returning to it when we had said goodbye and sat in the heavy traffic on the Autostrada towards Florence. That was the last time we saw Jørgen.

On November 18, Jørgen Haugen Sørensen died at his home in Solaio. He left an artistic imprint in the world that only very few can hope to match.

On Friday 1 April, we open the doors to what turns out to be Jørgen's last self-conceived exhibition. Former director of Bornholm's Art Museum and Jørgen's longtime friend and collaborator, Lars Kærulf Møller, opens the exhibition.

"Before and a little after" is a combination of unprecedented works and recent works that have been shown in other contexts. We agreed on this very special comparison with Jørgen long before his death; that was how he wanted it.

In the exhibition you will be able to experience reliefs in both ceramics and bronze, a series of newly produced bronze sculptures and Jørgen's irrevocably last drawings. Before the vernissage, Jørgen Haugen Sørensen's family and the Court in Frederiksberg invite you to a memorial service on Howitzvej 32, which is why the vernissage at Hans Alf Gallery only starts at 6 pm.