Love Me or Leave Me

Love Me or Leave Me collection display encompasses the most loved, discussed and hated works in the collection. The second round of exhibition, the Audience Selections, opening on 16 November will be assembled on the basis of data collected from the audience.

Love Me The meaning of art is created in the interaction between the viewer and the work. For example, a work that evokes beautiful or playful memories seems pleasant. We understand artworks through the sensations they produce. Artistic experience has expanded from mere visual perception into an experience involving our thoughts and all senses; this has had a central impact on the way we look at art.

… or Leave Me Art works can be repulsive for many reasons. The subject matter can be incomprehensible, the work can bring back memories of unpleasant experiences or fail to please the viewer. The viewer may have an aversion to the work if its subject matter is threatening or its manner of representation unpleasant. The form of the work may also be unsatisfactory: the work may be too simplistic or appear badly made.

Themes The worldview of provocative works may not offer calming or ennobling sights, but does that make them bad art? Many such works depict the shocking indifference, cruelty and conspicuous consumption in modern society. Some of them discuss violence, sexuality and identities. The viewer often has difficulties coping with the inner conflicts and the uncertainty that these works arouse.

We understand artworks through the sensations they produce. The meaning of a work is revealed in its entirety only after listening, reading, smelling, tasting, touching it or imagining the sensory experiences it creates. What is ghastly, strange or weird can evoke a vague sense of aversion. But is it not precisely this discomfort that makes works of art live and interesting, meaningful and thought-provoking?

The wistful beauty of the old world and the cruelty and unjustness of it go hand in hand in art. Art forces us to remember. Unpleasant memories and distressing events pushed to the back of the unconsciousness are again made visible. Works from the Nostalgia section often bring to the surface both pleasant, familiar feelings and collective or private traumas.

A positive outlook and joy, as well as difficult and painful issues, are conveyed through humour. A joke can be used to say aloud things that could not otherwise be said. The breaking of norms and rules of propriety can be settled with laughter. Humour stretches from harmless fun to scathing satire, from the ironic to the grotesque. Comedy, playfulness and sheer joy can disguise mockery, making fun of someone’s weaknesses and failures.

Pressetext

Love Me or Leave Me
Favourites from the Collections

mit Ken Feingold, Simryn Gill, Markus Copper, Hannele Rantala, Lilibeth Cuenca-Rasmussen, u.a.