I LOVE YOU AND THAT MAKES ME GOD
Los Angeles 2023 M+B Gallery group show
I LOVE YOU AND THAT MAKES ME GOD is an ongoing project started in 2012 which has taken many forms including: street art, video, public installation, painting, and sculpture. The expression is not intended to be religious, but is an exploration of various themes, including conviction, power, and intimacy. In a coalescence of private and public dialogue, the project encounters the beliefs we live by, with and without realization, and the unconscious frequency with which they surface, whether by intention or denial.
The work approaches the dichotomy between interpersonal and impersonal love: its focus is identity, both individual and collective, and the interstice of isolation and connection. The project is not concerned with the categorization of Love and God but explores the proximity of identity to these themes. Individual works within the project cultivate dialogue on the following concepts: ritual, community, evolution of humanity, cosmology, social constructionism, sacred histories, ethics, vulnerability, and the experience of conviction.
The project began with public interventions using the phrase. These interventions included pasting and writing the phrase on billboards and other highly visible locations around Los Angeles, as well as a 50 story public installation on the American Eagle Building in Times Square.
Since 2016, the work has explored spoken declarations of the phrase, using two channel videos which show participants engaging with it. The project has involved a broad range of participants from throughout the world, including celebrities, homeless individuals, academics, convicted criminals and victims, humanitarians, inventors, architects, service industry professionals, athletes, and a Native American tribal chief, among numerous others. (For more information on project participants click here). Each of these participants speak the phrase with their own interpretations of and reactions to its meaning.
In 2023, an iteration of the project was shown at M+B Gallery in LA. The exhibition included portraits of the artist Monsieur Zohore by a wide variety of his friends and peers. This iteration of I LOVE YOU AND THAT MAKES ME GOD is a two channel video of Zohore speaking the phrase. The video monitors are encased in a large scale sculpture made from plaster, dirt, and Ferrari car paint.
In 2017, an iteration of the project was shown at Young Projects in LA.
