When many people think of the word 鈥榣ove鈥, they instinctively imagine the romance of fairytales; passionate, glamorous, uncomplicated love. The reality of it may look pretty different. The types of love we feel are as varied as the people who experience it, as is the art that explores this聽theme.
Abstract
Wolfgang Tillmans
I don鈥檛 want to get over you (2000)
Tate
Winner of 2000鈥檚 Turner Prize, Wolfgang Tillmans, is known for his raw glimpses of youth culture and his abstract colour photography. I don鈥檛 want to get over you was titled after the 1999 track by The Magnetic Fields. Like this tune, the artless accessibility of Tillman鈥檚 work, with its light colours, and beautiful forms, is a kind of love聽song:
It鈥檚 an intuitive process鈥 I need to kind of bond with the material that I鈥檓 using鈥 over time I develop a sense of鈥 聽how to filter to get the color I want, or time the exposure exactly, or make a movement quick enough so that the paper doesn鈥檛 get too dark. So it is a very physical thing; and I love this sheet of paper itself, this lush, crisp聽thing.
American Suburb聽X
Obsessive
Masahisa Fukase
From Window听1974
漏 Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery.
Masahisa Fukase
From Window 1974
漏聽Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery.
Masahisa Fukase
From Window听1974
漏 Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery
Masahisa Fukase
From Window听1974
漏 Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery.
Masahisa Fukase
From Window听1974
漏 Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery.
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Simple
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
鈥淯ntitled鈥 (Double Portrait) (1991)
Tate
漏 The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation, Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
For this piece, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, stacked one hundred sheets of paper, each with two circles printed in the centre. The work was originally placed on the floor in the gallery and viewers were invited to take away a page. The printed image is a simple representation of two people brought together by love. This 鈥榓nti-monument鈥 which dwindles and is then replenished repeatedly, symbolises the feelings of loss and new love which people experience聽everyday.
Complicated
Ron Mueck
Spooning Couple (2005)
ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Ron Mueck leaves no detail to the imagination when reproducing the human form, often playing with scale to distort our expectations. However, his work is not merely physical; the body language of his sculptures is supercharged with emotion. In Spooning Couple, Mueck immortalises that fatal breakdown of communication 聽between two people. The pairs鈥 awkward nakedness and vulnerability turns us into voyeurs of humanity鈥檚 most private state聽鈥斅爑nhappiness.
Ordinary
Chris Killip
Couple eating fish and chips, Whitley Bay, Tyneside (1976, printed 2010)
Tate
Throughout the hardship of 1980鈥檚 Britain under Margaret Thatcher, Chris Killip鈥s work is a beacon of humanity. There is a strong political undercurrent to much of his imagery, as he documents a working class society surviving through the roughest of times. Yet, this is uplifted by photographs of total normality; regular people, doing regular tasks and enjoying each other鈥檚 company. He shows us that love is not always pretty, but can be beautifully聽ordinary.
Human
Wearing nothing but a giant pair of medical pants, Julie clutches her newborn baby and looks into the camera. Rineke Dijkstra鈥檚 photographs of women after giving birth are a profound, intimate documentation of love in its most primal聽form:
It鈥檚 amazing how they trust me, and I think that afterwards they understand that these photos are about something universal and that it鈥檚 not particularly about them鈥 lot of women came to me and said, you know it鈥檚 really great that you make these photographs because it鈥檚 really the way it is but nobody ever shows it, and I can recognise myself in it. And the men were all like, you can鈥檛 show a woman like聽that.
Cruel + Tender听2003.听
Perhaps Peggy Guggenheim sums it up better than we ever could: 鈥業t [is] all about art and聽love鈥櫬
