I Love You!

Pascale Marthine Tayou’s first solo exhibition in Austria “I Love You!”, especially conceived for Kunsthaus Bregenz, is a profuse and lavish presentation that unites diverse media.

Pascale Marthine Tayou’s work is characterized by its variability, since he confines himself in his artistic work neither to one medium nor to a particular set of issues.

While his themes may be various, they all use the artist himself as a person as their point of departure.

His works not only mediate between cultures, or set man and nature in ambivalent relations to each other, but are produced in the knowledge that they are social, cultural, or political constructions.

Pascale Marthine Tayou, “I love you”, Kunsthaus Bregenz — Pascale Marthine Tayou, “I Love You!”, Kunsthaus Bregenz

The emotional exuberance the title of the exhibition expresses is conveyed by his solo exhibition especially conceived for Kunsthaus Bregenz, with its profuse and lavish presentation uniting diverse media from drawings and objects to large-scale spatial installations. This overflowing show of new works creates the impression of a gesamtkunstwerk, with individual exhibits setting up an intensive dialogue, not just with each other, but with visitors as well.

Pascale Marthine Tayou, I Love You! — Pascale Marthine Tayou, “I Love You!”, Kunsthaus Bregenz

Over the stairways, in addition to a favela consisting of several hundred bird cages, are wooden stakes made of sharpened tree trunks and narrower, painted versions that call to mind Mikado sticks.

In cooperation with the Vorarlberg Museum the Kunsthaus is presenting a sculpture reminiscent of Constantin Brancusi’s The Endless Column in the 20-meter high foyer of the Vorarlberg Museum. Unlike Brancusi’s column of 1937-38, which was made of iron, a material typically used for sculptures, Tayou creates his version from simple cooking pots, incorporating everyday objects in art in his characteristically humorous way.

As he often does, Pascale Marthine Tayou will be using numerous people of different ages and from a range of social and professional backgrounds to help him realize his works in Bregenz. This will include a cooperation with the VKW Illwerke power company, whose trainees are a part of the installation team. Tayou will also be inviting other young people, school children, and adults to help tell a love story as varied as the actors taking part in it. The procedure illustrates Tayou’s distrust of a heroic image of the artist that sees the author as a detached, aloof figure, as well as revealing his genuine interest in other people. The title of his Bregenz exhibition could also be interpreted in such a manner.