Anthea Hamilton and Nicholas Byrne

Anthea Hamilton and Nicholas Byrne have been working together since 2009 but also, as has been widely noted, share a private partnership. The mobilization of personal relationships within artistic discourse becomes most interesting when they’re made visible. The pamphlet for their exhibition “Love IV: Cold Shower” is a nice example of this. In a kind of mild repartee, thought fragments are formulated about a group of works from the series “Love,” 2012–, as if they were metaphors for the condition called “love.” The six inflatable sculptures here form a playful and at first almost infantile setting—the airiness and cartoonish shapes of these works tempt one to interact with them. Additionally, there are bold Pop and sometimes quite erotically charged prints covering the works’ PVC surfaces, including Turkish delight, a grape motif from a Robert Mapplethorpe work, and Brancusi’sTorso of a Young Man, ca. 1917–22, or The Kiss, 1910, among other references. Each piece commands a space unto itself, and when one walks by, they begin to quiver like living beings or sway like unsteady architecture.

This installation represents an interwoven system that reflects the modality of the duo’s collaboration. The fact that air is one of the principal components of these works imparts the pieces with a different relevance, while the capture and presentation of this element points to complex, larger questions about what these works are filled with or powered by and especially what “love” actually signifies here: Freedom? Essence? Or just utopia?

Translated from German by Diana Reese.