Untitled (Sorry Mama)

Between two candleholders, on the clinically white mantelpiece of a fireplace, stand two children’s portraits of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. Above the fireplace hangs a mirror, onto whose reflective surface “Sorry Mama” has been etched in angular handwriting.

Escaping familiar surroundings and rejecting parental expectations is the subject of Untitled (Sorry Mama). The profiled, neoclassical mantelpiece alludes to a bourgeois context, while the children’s photographs explicitly reference Elmgreen & Dragset’s own biography. 

The work is exemplary of the artist duo’s narrative approach: concrete details are deliberately left vague, allowing viewers to project their own questions and experiences onto the piece. The subtle clues and references, however, are consolidated through the artists’ queer, autobiographical perspective, which counters rigid value systems with subtle humor.
Elmgreen & Dragset’s oeuvre speaks directly about queer life worlds and experiences, while also understanding queerness as an overarching strategy to challenge fixed norms.