Zenpuss: Love Is What You Want

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Love Is What You Want

Love is What You Want

No it isn’t. Love has nothing to do with what I want.

Love, love, love.

What exactly does that overused word mean? I’ve discussed it before on this blog but I am asking the question once more having visited Tracey Emin’s exhibition of that exact title.

Of course in some ways, Ms Emin is correct. Love can be anything that you want it to be but the problem with that is that your definition of love is completely different to my definition of love, if indeed you can ever define it.

As this exhibition demonstrates, ‘love’ is so vast, so eclectic and so personal that it is almost ridiculous to use the word with one generic meaning.

Love is about the feeling one has for parents, it is the opposite of hate, it is the love of sex, it is the love of life, it is the love of oneself, it is the appreciation of art, it is the acceptance of the body, it is full of disappointment as well as harmony – according to the exhibitions that I saw this week, interpreting Emin’s work.

In all of this, does love, apart from the unconditional feelings towards your children or the dutiful respect for your parents, mean anything at all?

“Don’t expect me to use the ‘L’ word” I don’t and I probably use it myself out of habit, although the feeling and passion behind using it is as honest and truthful as it could possibly be.
There is no real word to truly convey the complexity and the vastness of the feelings that I have for someone important in my life. ‘Love’ may appear trite, conventional, limited in its generality. So why is it still such a beautiful thing to be told – I love you.

I love you, I love you, I love you – what else can I say? Do I have to ‘say’ anything?

I love wild flowers, I love roaring seas, I love my children, I love writing, I love sex, I love bacon sandwiches. Can I possibly ‘love’ my lover with such a word when you consider the other things that I love. Isn’t it somewhat dismissive of the wealth of the relationship to lazily try to demonstrate its enormity in a word that cannot possibly capture the reality and the essence of the relationship?

What the hell does it mean? A simple word with no meaning, a four letter word that says nothing and means everything.

Love.

Whether you like Tracey Emin or not, her display of artwork, of neon lights, of embroidered blankets, of idiosyncratic films, all demonstrate this overuse of the word ‘love’ rather well. Emin says that love can be anything that you want it to be, and this is the truth but it is also the problem. If love can be anything that you want it to be, perhaps it loses any real value in its own complexities.

When I came out of the exhibition, I can honestly say that my main overriding feeling was one of contempt, not towards Tracey’s work. The exhibition is extremely interesting with some wonderful pieces within. But I felt disappointment, contempt for the actual notion of love. I almost felt a sense of disgust. Is that what love should be or is it the darker side of love that I took away with me, and one of the dark sides of love is the fact that it doesn’t really hold any meaning.

And oh how so contradictory because I still ‘love’ the phrase “I love you” and I will probably still use it because I cannot think of an appropriate alternative, assuming that any alternative or any words are required at all. I mean, what is the point in using this phrase if it loses its meaning as soon as the words have stumbled out of your mouth, not in its truthfulness but in its diverse meaning.

Only love is what you want, and if there is a complete understanding between two people, then surely it is okay to use the phrase after all. Not only is love what you want but ‘love’ means what you want to – as an unspoken agreement between the two of you.

If you both know that it cannot possibly capture the essence of the relationship yet you want to quickly try and verbalise the magnitude of feeling in a passionate moment, or the end of a telephone call why shouldn’t you use it, knowing it means nothing whilst also demonstrating a shared everything?

Love is what you want, and sometimes love is what you don’t want or love is not what you want but the love is still there nonetheless. Love is a hard, hard word. Love is the most spectacular thing in life. It means everything and it means nothing. It is a wonderful demonstration of the complex nature of human relationships and human individuality.

Love, love, love – think about it before you use it in the most valuable, real, honest and closest relationships in your life.

.................................................................

So what of the actual exhibition?

It was good. It was interesting. It was disturbing. It was clearly challenging. It was sad. It was hopeless. It was sick. It was enlightening. It was thought-provoking. It was clever. It was annoying.

Just like the word itself, this ‘love’ exhibition is going to mean different things to every person who enters the building.

Emin has already stated that this is partly the whole purpose of the exhibition and because this artist is somewhat warped and flawed like all of us, it reiterates the stupidity of the word as well as the light and dark nature of love itself.

Tracey Emin likes to consider herself as a literary artist. She thinks that this is one of the most prominent aspects of her work and would probably want to be remembered for this rather than “The Bed” or her collection of used tampons, which incidentally she has on display in this exhibition too.

And in some ways she is correct. She should be seen as a literary artist because you are drawn to the hand written messages in her work. It conveys so much about her, which is something that I hope my writing does – tells an awaiting audience about who I am, what makes me tick, what excites me and challenges me.

You can certainly see her dark side. It is evident throughout her work and there are glimpses of a lighter side. Just framing the exhibition in the way that she and the curators at the museum have done demonstrates an real understanding of the whole nature of love and how it really can be anything that you want it to be, though I would love to have seen the exhibition titled “Love is What You Want or is it?”

I admire Emin’s willingness to demonstrate her dark side; so many of us shy away from it. I was, however, left with the notion that it is so dominant in her life that the lightness of love does not shine through, though there are elements of humour and a genuine affection displayed in some of the exhibits.

So to finish this blog, with respect to the woman, I am going to list a few of the writings that I observed as I walked around. I may well return to some of the statements in a later blog.

............................................................

The following are all quotes from her work that can be seen embroidered into the incredibly detailed blankets. They also include quotes from Emin within her films.

Here is her love. Please note that some of the spellings are either deliberately or naturally incorrect and I shall use them as I saw.

· The worse I could do is betray

· No one in the room has not thought of killing

· Why should I protect myself from you when you are the one?

· One day you will ask yourself what you have done to (sic) late

· Does trust come with maturity? Or fear/laziness takes over?

· Feeling alone and fucked over is an inevitable state at 13 -25-35-70

· Look at that ugly cunt........ and even then I knew they were pointing the wrong way

· One day the person being fucked wasn’t me any more

· I want it back – that girl of 17

· I expect to die alone

· I want an international lover that loves me more than the world

· You left me. My sex has gone. I am broken

· Beleave (sic) me

· Past is a heavy place

· Disgusted by your envy

· Nothing to do but dream

· I’m leaving. I’m free

· Just making love to fuck insanely and to know it doesn’t stop – nothing stays, my mind, my vision

· Making love to the point of oblivion

· We need it – both of us, against all odds from nothing

· I forgive myself

· Have you wanked over me yet?

· It felt so unexplained, the loss of your touch. Really hard

I will return to these. There’s quite a lot to say.

“It felt so unexplained, the loss of your touch” It was the hardest thing I ever had to bear. It felt so unnatural that it was probably then when I realised the extent of my l..........

Emin also had her display of neon from various museums that have bought her work.

· Meet me in heaven. I want you too

· Life without you – never

· Those who suffer love I can feel your smile

· I whisper to my past. Do I have another choice?

· People like you need to fuck people like me

· When I go to sleep I dream on you inside me

· Fuck off and die you slag

· Is anal sex legal? Is legal sex anal?

· Not so difficult to understand

· I said don’t practice on me

· I know, ~~I know~~, I know

I know and don’t know either but I do dream when I sleep and I hopelessly, helplessly, urgently believe in some of the statements above. Which ones eh?

There is love there, whatever that may be. There is connection and understanding. There is lightness and darkness simultaneously.

Perhaps ‘love’ really is up to you.