A point, a punch line, and a moment of dark ambivalence collide in Niclas Riepshoff’s A Stitch in Time (all works 2021). The cartoonish sculpture depicts an elderly lady with a boy over her knee. An enormous silver needle in hand, she appears to mend his pants right on his arched bottom. The object is a drastically enlarged, exaggerated replica of a kitschy decorative figurine, one in a series of similar genre scenes. Inside the cutesiness looms an abyss of repression. Is this grandmotherly care or authoritarian violation? By scaling up the scene, Riepshoff’s adaptation amplifies its menace as