Seven museums united in deadly sin

Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and other internationally renowned and iconic artists come together in a new and courageous collaboration by seven Danish art museums. The seven museums each present one of the seven deadly sins in a modern setting for The Deadly Sins, a unique and ambitious co-operative project.

Pride. Anger. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth.  The classic list of sins still resonates, but are they still deadly? Or even sinful? Have they become acceptable - maybe even desirable? The seven deadly sins have challenged and engaged humanity since the Middle Ages. They are still very much present in the Western moral imagination, and still often debated in film, dance, literature and art. Now they are ripe for re-thinking.

Seven art museums in Denmark jointly present a ground-breaking, modern perspective on the Medieval deadly sins. Seven different exhibitions will each address one deadly sin, as interpreted by globally recognised artists including Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Christian Lemmerz and Rebecca Louise Law.

The Deadly Sins can be experienced from 4^th February until 28^th May 2017, and forms one of the biggest art projects for Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture.

I shop therefore I am
Barbara Kruger is famous for her interrogations of consumerism through monumental and pithy text installations that use declarative statements that directly address the audience (I SHOP THEREFORE I AM; WHEN I HEAR THE WORD CULTURE I GET OUT MY CHEQUE BOOK; PLENTY OUGHT TO BE ENOUGH!). For this project, she has prepared an installation at the Museum for Religious Art in Lemvig. Within Kruger’s specially-prepared room, the audience becomes implicated in a barrage of words that question greed and acquisitiveness. 

Visitors to all the exhibitions will have the opportunity to experience paintings, installation art, sculpture, music, scenography and social interventions, with the various creations utilizing a spectrum of different materials such as marble, concrete, fresh flowers and glass. Admission to the exhibitions includes a discount system so visitors can enjoy all the participating sites across the Central Denmark Region.

What is not good?
“It is more pressing now than ever to interrogate issues like greed, gluttony and anger,” says Rebecca Matthews, Chief Executive Officer of Aarhus 2017. “The world needs to consider what is good and what is not. We are happy that Central Denmark Region’s role in European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017 will include this timely focus on ethical issues, communicated by internationally recognized artists.”

“We are thrilled to have been able to assist on this unique cooperation between museums that bring to the country, among others, Barbara Kruger, one of the most significant and important artists of this and the last century,” adds Juliana Engberg, Programme Director in European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017. “Barbara’s fierce and urgent messages are utterly necessary for us if we are to contemplate issues of sustainability and equality.”

A major publication, including essays and observations on ancient and modern interpretations of sin, has been produced to accompany the exhibitions. Read the publication here.

The seven exhibitions: From Lust to Wrath

LUST– Randers Kunstmuseum, Randers
Randers Kunstmuseum has invited legendary American artist Jenny Holzer and the widely recognized Danish-German artist Christian Lemmerz to rethink the deadly sin Desire or Fornication. Is desire a sin today, after the ‘Free Love’ movement of the 1970s? The exhibition seeks to present an understanding of desire as an uncontrolled sexual obsession, which can lead to infidelity, violence and bestial actions. 

GLUTTONY – Museet for Religiøs Kunst, Lemvig
For the deadly sin of Gluttony, internationally renowned artist Barbara Kruger (USA) creates a total experience, an installation where the walls and floor in one of the museum’s exhibition spaces are covered with words. Kruger rethinks Gluttony from a contemporary perspective, with the concept of consumerism a central theme, offering a critical look at how consumption and power create our cultural values, identity and stereotypes, whilst shaping the world we live in.

SLOTH – Glasmuseet Ebeltoft
With deep roots in the colourful Mexican culture and its motivs, the anti-minimalists Ainar and Jamex de la Torre present a both personal and global look at the deadly sin Laziness (or ‘sloth’, to use the traditional term). The exhibition looks at the clichés surrounding the stereotype of ‘lazy Mexicans’. It highlights the paradox that while Mexicans in the southern USA take on hard manual labour in high temperatures, which no one else wants to do, they are still characterized as lazy. 

GREED – Holstebro Kunstmuseum, Holstebro
Peter Linde Busk (DK), Steinar Haga Kristensen (NO) and Alexander Tovborg (DK) focus on the basic conditions of man’s existence. In its reinterpretation of the concept Greed, the exhibition in Holstebro Kunst Museum stresses the interaction between art, public spaces and political-religious ideology.

PRIDE – Skovgaard Museet, Viborg
It is not only Christianity that considers pride a sin – Judaism and Islam also view pride as something negative, an expression of humanity’s rebellion against god. Pride is considered as a misunderstanding of a person’s place in relation to god. But how does that relationship function in the 21st century? At Skovgaard Museum, British artist Rebecca Louise Law addresses this question. 

ENVY – Muse®um, Skive
Muse®um in Skive has invited the Danish video artist Katja Bjørn to rethink jealousy (‘envy’). Bjørn has gained renown through her comprehensive video-installations and unique video sculptures, where the human body and relations between people are often frequent themes. In Skive she creates two video creations amongst urban spaces of the town, which will confront passers-by with this deadly sin, seeking to break into their everyday lives. 

WRATH –Horsens Kunstmuseum, Horsens
At Horsens Kunstmuseum, Martin Erik Andersen (DK), René Schmidt (DK) and Vinyl Terror & Horror (DK) address anger through an immersive experience using sound, light and sculptural objects. Martin Erik Andersen’s works combine many different elements in engaging ways, whilst René Schmidt works with 3D-print and concrete. Behind the name Vinyl Terror & Horror are Camilla Sørensen and Greta Christensen who create installations in which mechanical objects are constructed using a precise ‘cut-up’ technique.