Emily's burnt comb

The on going exhibition Roni Horn: Recent Work at the Hauser & Wirth London Gallery (9 September – 22 October 2011) contains a work inspired by a Brontë anecdote. Regrettably we have been unable to find a picture of the piece, but Laura Mc-Lean Ferris describes it in The Independent:

Horn drags us away from wateriness, too, with this work's title. It is called Untitled ("Once I saw Emily's comb, a very nasty-looking comb, too. She dropped it off the horsehair sofa the moment she died and it fell in the fire. Charlotte grabbed it, which seems an odd thing to have bothered about doing with her sister dying. There it is to this day, a bit burnt. One of the most horrible things I ever saw.") (2011).
This title refers to an anecdote about the death of Emily Brontë. The images of the fire, horsehair sofa, death and the burnt comb and seem antithetical to the atmosphere of Horn's sculptures, which have a cool, gentle atmosphere. It is as though they might be memory buckets, or soothing lozenges – a balm to stories of pain and fire. They are very beautiful, and worth visiting on different days, to be seen in changing climatic conditions as the cold sharpens its teeth and the days contract towards winter.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions