DANGEROUS LOVE

28. 9. 2024 – 5. 1. 2025

The last exhibition before the reconstruction of the town gallery is dedicated to LOVE, because even the artistic profession is not immune to burning or broken hearts. …. and the phenomenon of love is especially inscribed in the works of women artists, sculptors and painters, those who have found a firm and sovereign place in the art world.

The exhibition DANGEROUS LOVE, curated by Dadja Altenburg-Kohl, director of the Montanelli Museum in Prague, introduces visitors to paintings, drawings, objects and videos by twenty-two women artists of eleven nationalities. The generously conceived show is particularly interesting for its artefacts, in which the artists deal in various ways with a wide range of feelings and contradictory passions traditionally associated with LOVE.

This intimate exhibition presents works of art that speak of eternal truths and warnings, of love that is fleeting and wounding or intoxicating and inspiring. Thus, the delicate perforated drawings by Spanish artist Sard Amparo depicting the everyday hardships of a love relationship are complemented by works that rely on feelings of piquancy or voyeurism (the video High Heel Stomp by the German artist duo STOLL WACHALL), while the painter Xenia Hoffmeister’s works thematise the physicality of the female body (After Shave; Unreceptive), artist Dana Sahánek’s large-scale drawings tell the age-old story of the depiction of love in visual art (Untitled VII-III-V).

Love intoxicates, inspires, uplifts, comforts, hurts, torments and wounds. There is that love sickness that makes us doubt our own sanity, all the comforting words and all the principles we have understood up to now. Breakups are hard, too, and those who have been spared this emotional chaos so far have probably been able to experience that notorious heartbreak with their loved ones or in their immediate vicinity and are a bit broken by it as well. It’s not always easy with a lost love …… or a new found one, even though the hormones of happiness promise an eternal paradise on earth. We meet her unexpectedly, the bliss blinds us.

Dadja Altenburg-Kohl

Female artists represented in the exhibition:
Adamová Kateřina, Akin Özlem, Ban-Jiránková Viktoria, Degioanni Marielle, Diehl Teresa, Guilleminot Marie-Ange, Hoffmeisterová Xénia, Holcová Veronika, Landau Sigalit, Martagex Sandra, Pelosi Marilena, Renz Cornelia, Röhrscheid Anke, Sahánková Dana, Sard Amparo, Schwab Eva, Stoll and Wachall, Trockel Rosemarie, Vásquez de la Horra Sandra, Viková Jindra.

The DANGEROUS LOVE exhibition was kindly lent to the Litomyšl Town Gallery by the Montanelli Museum. The exhibited paintings, photographs, video installations, objects and artefacts come mainly from the collection of the Montanelli Museum.

Xénia Hoffmeisterová / Unfriendly
Amparo Sard / Untitled
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Özlem Akin / The Promised Rose Garden I, II

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Sigalit Landau / Sysifos
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Eva Schwab / Insomnia (left), About Eden (right)

Accompanying programme