The Lover’s Discourse Project at Rare Nest Gallery – Chicago
A Sample, short film by Zarko Mladenovic of an installation by Keith Bringe.
Bringe Keith An Lover’s Discourse at Rare Nest Gallery May 2019.jpg
Roland Barthes’s “Fragments d’un discours amoureux” was published in Paris in 1977 by Editions du Seuil and was translated in an English edition in 1978. The book comprises 80 chapters or “fragments” which explore common concepts in the language of love. In this important semiotic, linguistic analysis, Barthes draws upon references from the worlds of literature, music, painting and philosophy. The author cites Plato, Balzac, Goethe, Racine, Nietzsche, Brecht and many more forming a tapestry of utterances – sublime and brutal – illuminating the human language of love.
Chicago-based artist Keith Bringe conceived of a project that would interpret “A Lover’s Discourse” through 80 constructions – one for each chapter. Each “fragment” is contained within a vintage French wine crate that forms an environment for an assemblage of drawings, paintings, found objects, photographs and more.
Labeled with chapter headings in French and English, the individual fragments form a text of their own through configurations ranging from towers to traditional wall-hung series. The collection is meant to be tailored to the environment in which it is shown.