Ahead of October, Unit London presents a new group exhibition inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic Dante’s Inferno. The poem takes readers on a gripping journey through the nine circles of Hell, led by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. After 700 years, the story continues to leave an indelible mark in the worlds literature, fashion, music, and art.
Titled Dante’s Inferno, the exhibition delves into a darker side, inviting viewers into the nine circles of Hell: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. In a diverse array of paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works, 12 artists reinterpret the contrapasso in store at every level.
The journey begins at Revision Line (the view), where Andrea Marie Breiling guides viewers into a state of perpetual longing, suspended into a space between light and darkness. In Purgatorio, Rex Southwick imagines Dante’s mountain as an indulgent sea-side villa, precariously perched on a cliff’s edge. Meanwhile, the stoneware snakes of Malene Hartmann Rasmussen’s Drille-djævel (Tease-Devil) find home in the Eighth Circle, where they eternally torment deceptive and duplicitous souls.
“By revisiting the age-old connection between death, judgment, Hell and Paradise, the exhibition embodies the rich theological and artistic heritage that grapples with the fate of the human soul,” the gallery explains in a statement. With an enduring hunger for the morbid and macabre, Dante’s Inferno presents a series of souls, forever bound by the walls of their own making.
The exhibition is now on view at Unit London until November 3, 2024.
Unit London
3 Hanover Square
London W1S 1HD
