Tao Stein: Love and Artifice

This work derives from a traditional form of communication and propaganda in China, the big character poster, or dazibao (大字报). Big character posters typically express the biggest and most abstract ideas; freedom, equality, and justice, for example. This work takes the dazibao medium and uses it instead to express the most personal, the most real and concrete – the complexity of love.

The dazibao will contain the following poem:

I pretend to love you
You pretend to be happy
You pretend to love me
I pretend to be happy

The context of Venice is crucial for this work. For over a thousand years, Venice has been a place where East and West have met to exchange goods and ideas. Putting this Chinese poem in a space in Venice creates a dialogue across cultures that accents what is great about this unique city. Venice is not only beautiful, it also connects cultures.