28 Chinese

Lovers Are Artists (Part One)
2012
by Fang Lu (Chinese, b. 1981)
Four-channel video (color, si-lent), edition 1 of 5

Courtesy of Rubell Family Collection, Miami.
© Fang Lu.

Lovers Are Artists (Part One) follows a young woman through Beijing's streets and alleyways as she goes about everyday activities. Her interactions with her surroundings become increasingly strange. This work is inspired by the French theorist Roland Barthes's book on the irrational state of being in love, in which he compiled fragments from literature and philosophy to simulate a lover's perspective. Fang Lu's work presents fragments of the young woman, whose lovesickness alters her experience in the city.

"The street is 'her' living room, the hutong [alley] 'her' studio. Wandering in the streets and alleys, 'she' buys groceries like an ordinary woman who is living her daily life, but afterward, she destroys, uses, and creates these goods in particular ways, just like an artist redesigning an object. The title 'Lovers Are Artists' comes from a chapter of Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, pointing to the different ways people who are in love can be in touch with our world, just like the ways artists perceive the world."—Fang Lu