Cheekwood is pleased to announce an innovative, groundbreaking exhibition planned for fall entitled More Love: Art, Politics and Sharing Since the 1990s, whichexplores the deep human need for connection in a world heavily influenced by technology, globalism, and gender and sexual politics. The exhibit will open in Cheekwood’s Museum of Art on September 20, 2013.

This is the first major exhibition to investigate the many ways contemporary artists have addressed the subject of love: as a political force, as a philosophical model for equitable knowledge exchange, and as social interaction within a rapidly changing landscape of technology and social media. 

More Love brings together 45 works by a diverse group of nearly 30 artists working in the last two decades in a range of media—video, photography, sculpture, sound, participatory art projects and choreographed events—to investigate the ways we express love today

“In the 1960s, the call for love was revolutionary and built around unity; today, it is more of an idealized plea than a movement,” said guest curator Claire Schneider. “This exhibition explores love as an undercurrent in a culture of people overloaded with ways to connect but still wrestling with isolation. I wanted to examine love, personal relationships, and community engagement through the lens of contemporary art. What has changed in the political, economic, technological, and co-production aspects of our world in the last twenty years to affect the way we interact with others? My goal was to show love’s complexity as well as its transformative power.”

More Love is a dynamic and sometimes daring artistic experience for visitors, inviting them to engage with the artwork on display and in many cases, participate with each other to create it. In one work, Rivane Neuenschwander’s First Love creates art from the visitor’s own history as they set up advance appointments with a forensic artist to sketch their first love as they would verbally describe him or her from memory. Several other works in the exhibition make collaborators of the audience, as well. Yoko Ono’s Time to Tell Your Love, for example, asks visitors to contribute by documenting their own acts of affection with a photograph as a part of an ever-evolving collection of proven love.

“Untitled” (Ross in L.A.), is one of the exhibition’s three works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who Schneider describes as “the Andy Warhol of this generation.” In this piece, Gonzalez-Torres invites his audience to participate in the communion of giving and receiving when they take a piece of candy and eat it in the gallery, in memory of his soul mate who died of AIDS. Gregory Sale’s Love for Love features a trough of metal buttons imprinted with love-inspired texts created by the homeless and other less-heard voices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Visitors are encouraged to take a button and wear it, as well as notice the buttons worn by others as they circulate through the exhibition and into the community. The goal of both works is to foster dialogue, tolerance and awareness long after the viewer leaves the gallery.

In addition to the aforementioned artists, an impressive list of celebrated contemporary artists will be represented, some with new commissions and site-adapted installations, including Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Janine Antoni, Louis Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, Sharon Hayes, Jim Hodges, Dario Robleto, Kateřina Seda, Gillian Wearing and others.

“More Love is a fascinating exploration of love in contemporary art, expressed in ways that are sometimes radical, thought-provoking and interactive,” said Jochen Wierich, Curator for Cheekwood’s Museum of Art. “We’re excited to present this incredible exhibition, particularly a contemporary show of this scale. We’re committed to promoting and hosting art that surprises and challenges our audience in unexpected and groundbreaking ways. This exhibition does just that.”

In addition to the exhibition in Cheekwood’s galleries, More Love will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated, 240-page catalogue with essays by Claire Schneider, Jonathan Katz, and Dario Robleto, among others, and interviews with Laura Nakadate, Gregory Sale, and Kateřina Šedá. Additional materials —ranging from Twitter feeds to facsimiles of love letters—from artists in the exhibition are also included.

The exhibition will run from September 20, 2013 – January 5, 2014.