The Hate

The exhibition The Hate takes as its subject jealousy, this primal and insidious emotion between pain and desire, fueled by sexual tension, low-esteem, pride and the wish for truth. Through the mediums of photography, video, text, and installation we meet a poetic investigation that presents this emotion from the point of view of the jealous, the adulterous and the love rival.

I once received a long message from an agitated woman, accusing me of having had an affair with her husband 20 years earlier. She seemed to be so sure it had happened and described the most terrible details about how we did when we 'did it'. The thing is – it never happened. I was profoundly touched by her pain and anger. At the time I was having a crisis in my own relationship and I got the insight that the worst thing about jealousy is to live with a poisonous doubt. How the mind fills the gaps from the partners untold stories with sordid fantasies and how those wretched scenarios eventually become the truth to the jealous. I responded to the letter and we started an interesting conversation. This story was the starting point to the exhibition. 

The works in the exhibition – four videos and three installations – unveil questions related to power and violence, as well as the complexity of an emotion hard to explain.

The exhibition departs from a personal narrative to explore the nature of jealousy with doses of intimacy, violence and death. Many of the works juxtapose writing and film/sound to express the thin line that separates truth from fiction. In the gap between the known and the unknown and what you can and cannot demand from your partner, dreams end up being the place where the supressed feelings shows up.