Flowers of Romance - Act One
Curated by Charlie Fox, Flowers of Romance will unfold in two parts and will take place across both spaces at Lodovico Corsini in Brussels. Act One will run from 13 September until 26 October, and Act Two will run from 8 November until 21 December. Act One, or Day, is the sweeter counterpart of this duet with works by: Nobuyoshi Araki, Matthew Barney, Javier Barrios, Julie Becker, Camille Blatrix, Cosima von Bonin, Matt Copson, Aria Dean, Francesca Facciola, Karen Kilimnik, George Kuchar, Calvin Marcus, Sam McKinniss, Ron Nagle, Laura Owens, Torbjorn Rodland, Rachel Rose, Borna Sammak, Jack Smith, Hajime Sorayama, Cy Twombly. Music by Oliver Leith
"Aw, I’ve always been a romantic.
I fancied the skunk from Bambi, I love Sade— as in Diamond Life, not Justine. Once when I was sick, I watched The Age of Innocence five times in two days. This romantic tendency may also manifest in the fact that I’ve always found reality weirdly… unfinished. This is why we have art, probably, to make up for a certain lack of imagination in the external world, or from ‘God’.
All those thoughts play out in Flowers of Romance. I wanted to make a dissociative zone where all kinds of magical objects could flirt with each other and seduce you, like wandering around a Disney version of the Garden of the Eden on hallucinogens, full of wild animals freaking out, weird music, lush grass underfoot like in Alice Through the Looking-Glass.
‘Freaking out’? You bet. I mean, falling in love is disorientating and scary just as much as it makes you feel like you’re skipping across the sky or whatever. Your heart melts. ‘Romance’ is a rabbit hole into thinking about heartbreak, weird kinks, extremely gorgeous animals, ecstasy and depression, angels and demons.
When the idea of the show was just beginning to bloom in my mind, I was thinking about a lot of luscious simulations of nature, too, the hyperreal fruitfulness of baroque painting coupled with Spielberg’s Hook. Something good enough to eat. Heathers is also a big deal here, obviously: ‘lick it up, baby, lick it up.’
The show is divided into two acts: Day and Night. If I was their relationship therapist, I’d probably say Act One (Day of the Smitten Leopards) is the sweet part of this folie à deux while Act Two (The Night of the Heartbroken Raccoon), which will happen in November after Act One’s run is complete, is kind of… darker, but then power couples always have strange effects on each other. Both parts are, of course, equally influenced by Roxy Music’s Avalon.
I’d tell you something kind of meaningful about John Donne’s poetry, too, or ‘post-Koons aesthetics of cuteness’ or the best way to appreciate the fantastic purple watermelon balls on George Kuchar’s portrait of his beloved dog. (R.I.P. George and Bocko) but it’s way more fun to just get lost in the jungle. OK, I will say that almost everything you need to know about the show is contained within the video for ‘Kiss of Love’ by Sade: Skittles-tinted colour, chronic longing, roses on fire.
Love is the drug."
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Charlie Fox
