Monica Ritterband: Dialogue with Haugen Sorensen at Willumsens Museum

Rarely have I wandered through such a bottomless black country as what Haugen Sørensen presents in the dialogue exhibition "Time meets time", where his artistic exclamations and calls are set to meet many of J.F. Willumsen's well-known works.

Crushed one sees Haugen Sørensen describe the beast in man's endless struggle for power. In a large bronze tableau, we see furious and furious fighting dogs flailing at each other. Some die, some submit, others win and lie saturated on their backs with giant aggressive erect dog dicks. Or lighten legs. Each and every dog ​​is a reflection of the madness of this life, where the dog's struggle in condensed form exhibits human folly, ruthlessness, empathy and selfishness ...

Haugen Sørensen repeatedly returns thematically to the operational-controlled brutality inherent in man. And the epitome of grotesque and absurd unfolds in a caricatured way in the sculpture "The mother of stupidity - the mother of stupidity", which is a large birth, pink flowing lump. No head or legs, just a stupid lot.

In my interpretation, it is Haugen Sørensen's commentary on life, as being directionless, random, inexplicable and incomprehensible. That we humans who have seen and understood the horror of war still keep posting money in war and chaos. We are all headless.

In the large hall of Willumsen's museum we meet a number of Haugen Sørensen's newest works - from 2018 and 19. A number of people who look like they are shaped by fast, rough and furious movements, gloomy and expressive.

The faces are clay chunks that are almost boxed forward. Cavities occur. Seemingly random and at least scary. You see, for example, a human being curved with his hands to his ears. The sculpture is called "Drone Sound". Where are we heading? Does the world just meet its own downfall?

The corresponding works by Willumsen do not have quite the same apocalypse, but in common the two artists have the desire to cultivate and show the grotesque and merciless characteristic of man.

The exhibition provokes discomfort. It is pitch black and dystopian. And scary. Justice and a good God do not exist.

This is exactly why I see the exhibition as significant. It clearly states that the drives have taken over and are primarily the governing of human will .. And in that there is, implicitly, a call for the coming generation to fight our madness. Let all school children take a walk through "Time meets time". It might regulate the future.