A gloomy, desolate courtyard with crumbling walls. On a table, covered with a sheet, lies a human figure, a dead body? The woman behind the table pulls the sheet away. It is an sculpture, made of clay, a woman, a man? She takes the arm, the hand, kneads it into the right shape and then puts the arm lovingly over the abdomen. She also works on the legs, it is a passionate kneading, shaping, modelling. Then she gently lifts the head and shoulders, supported with her arm. She resembles the grieving Mary with her son. Desperate attempts to bring the sculpture to life? But the harder she works, the harder it gets. The image struggles and falls apart.
Her efforts are heart breaking. Why does this affect me so? Is it the despair, the passion? The longing for a lost loved one?

I saw this video years ago at the Passion exhibition in Oirschot during the annual Stabat Mater concerts. I often had to think about the artist’s desperate attempts to bring a dead person back to life.
My searching for the video began when I wrote a chapter about art for the book Stabat Mater Dolorosa. But then, how can Google help if you don’t know the name of the artist or the name of the work? Video, dead man, skeleton on table didn’t yield what I was looking for. Just like the e-mail to the organisers of the exhibition. Unfortunately no story about the video in my book.

And then, summer 2022. During a cycling holiday along the German border we pause in Doetinchem and we walk lazily through the little town, it is very warm. In the Stadsmuseum is an exhibition The Passion in Art. It is nice and cool inside. Up the stairs and then on the left, there is a screen where a video is played. THIS IS IT! The video is called Pietà and is by Erzsébet Baerveldt, Dutch photographer, painter, draftsman, video artist and sculptor. She is the woman who struggles with the sculpture and eventually loses.

About Baerveldt I read on Wikipedia that she studied at the Royal Academy of Art and Design in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and later at the State Academy of Art in Amsterdam. Many of her sculptures can be found in the Netherlands. She also received several awards.
Erzsébet was born as Sharon Baerveldt but had her first name officially changed in 1993 because of her fascination (obsession?) for the Hungarian countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1614). Báthory was a Hungarian serial killer who liked to bathe in blood and is known as ‘Countess Dracula’. A bizarre story!

Yes, I would like, on behalf of our foundation, to organise an exhibition about Stabat Mater and visual arts. Including this video!