‘Love is Louder’, a paradoxical line from an installation by American artist Sam Durant, is the title of a new large-scale (120 works by 80 artists) multimedia exhibition at Bozar in Brussels. The 1967 ‘Summer of Love’ is taken as a point of reference. ‘All we need is Love!’ Tomorrow was the student revolutions of tumultuous ‘68. ‘Love is Louder’ was the slogan waved by demonstrators we know from Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. Love is Louder than what? War, pandemics, politics. Everyone chooses their own answer. The exhibition is initiated and curated by Zoé Gray, programme art director of Bozar.
The artists, from internationally renowned such as Louise Bourgeois and Marina Abramović to young and emerging ones, speak about love in their own tone and style, choosing their own material and object of love. The creative duo Valentina Ornaghi and Claudio Prestinari tango with two toothbrushes in a glass – and it is small for their love.
Louise Bourgeois’s ‘Couple’ (2002) sets the tone for the exhibition, with two suspended figures twirling in a tight embrace. The small figures, made of pink terry cloth, are naked and vulnerable. They are exhibited in a metal display case, which on the one hand protects them, but on the other hand turns an intimate scene into a public domain. The artist has always been interested in the duality of human relationships (think of her Spiders), painting a tender portrait of intimacy and connection. It speaks to our desire for wholeness – both in ourselves and in our romantic relationships.
The exhibition offers a kaleidoscopic view of love in all its complexity through the artists’ eyes, in a great variety of forms and voices. At a time of increasing violence, uncertainty and polarisation, this is seen as a call to ‘make love, not war’, a call to focus on what can unite us.
In this context, a very personal project by Latvian artist Diana Tamane sounds very touching. Belgium is no stranger to the young artist, who works in multimedia and with her own family’s artefacts. She studied at one of Europe’s best art residencies, HISC in Ghent. ‘It’s like a thread that facilitates communication. It’s my love language,’ she admits. For this work, Tamane revisits family albums and shows moments of tactile bonding between her and family members. In this way, she creates history in images, both personal and universal, questioning the dynamics that underpin bonding, attachment, hierarchy or power in the family and, more broadly, in post-Soviet society.
And, oh my! How the concept of love has changed in the 70 intervening years. Come to the exhibition and experience for yourself how ‘Love is Louder’.
