THIS IS LOVE? -ARoS AARHUS KUNSTMUSEUM
27th of March -12th of September 2010
The exhibition THIS IS LOVE? focuses on the unique, multifaceted, and indomitable feeling that love between two people entails. Love is the strongest emotion a person can experience. Love is a game of life and death. When love functions well it is associated with beauty, joy, sensuality, presence and solicitude, but the downside of love is indifference, hate, jealousy, powerlessness and revenge.
The theme of love is central and strikingly illustrated in modern literature, theatre, film and music. But when it comes to visual art, and especially within painting, the theme is not prominent to the same degree. Nevertheless, many eminent, internationally recognized artists within all areas of art media have worked either temporarily or consistently with the theme of love in their artistic production; not least the emergence of female artists on the international art scene has, since the 1980s, validated the artists' focus on love, for good or bad.
The reflections that visual artists over the latter decades have made regarding love are extremely nuanced. The classic dream of endless love is fundamentally intact. Nevertheless, the meeting of love with the many faces of reality is often painful and destructive.
With the exhibition THIS IS LOVE? ARoS places the theme of love in focus, as it has developed within visual arts since 19621 when the pop melody 'Love Me Do' by The Beatles went directly into the heart of an adolescent, post-war generation. The radical message of the time on love, liberty and equality between people, and in relationships in particular, was-to the great indignation of the adult generation - received with open arms by youths all over the world. Old traditions, which maintained individuals in the social and moral straitjacket of the family and marriage, were put under enormous pressure. Now youths wanted to liberate love, sexuality and gender. Experimental life and work connections during the 6os and 70s opened up to diversity, open-mindedness and creativity; the likes of which the world had never before witnessed.
With its love theme, the exhibition moves through a minefield, in that the intoxication from the happy days of the 6os naturally could not be maintained. Here it also became mundane again. Divorce rates went sky-high, existential crises proliferated, tolerance shrunk and new puritanism once more set moral standards for how we ought to live.
The museum is aiming to get around 30-35 renowned international and Danish artists represented in the form of paintings, sculptures, film, installations and photos. Amongst others, Roy Lichtenstein, Sam Taylor-Wood, Runa Islam, Candice Breitz, Yigal Ozeri, Richard Prince, Tracey Enim, Veronika Veit, Ghada Amer, Mona Hatoum, Elodie Pong, Elmgreen & Dragset, Damien Hirst, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Pierre & Gilles, Richard Billingham, Sophie Calle, Isaac Julien, Trine S0ndergaard, Nikolai Howalt, Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, Nina Berman, Barbara Kruger, and Pipilotti Rist. They are all artists who, from various angles, temporarily or consistently get to grips with the phenomenon of love - whether it be in a humorous, romantic, traumatic, political, poetical or existential manner.