Verena Krieger

The Art of Love

When hate grows, love is the only answer. It is a simple answer. It is the simple thing that is so hard to do. It is fragile. It can simply be canceled out. Nevertheless, there is no alternative to it.

Love is a struggle. The most beautiful struggle in the world.

Love is not powerless and not impotent. It is partisan. It fights tooth and nail. It is unjust.
But never as unjust and violent as hate.

When hate grows, it reveals a lack of love. Hate is not simply the opposite of love; instead it arises from its lack. The need for love is huge; the love of this need too small. It requires gardeners who cultivate it and foster its growth.

When rightwing hate grows, it is time to counter it with partisan love. A love that leaves no space for hate, absorbs it, annuls it.

One form of love is art. It is the love of the sensual and the reflexive. It is extremely subjective and necessarily collective at the same time. It produces sensitivity, provokes a reaction. It is the space where everything is permitted, even hate.

It is time to let love become powerful. A sensuous, self-aware, aggressive love that does not back down and that integrates its own contradictions. A love in art and an art of love.

Who should do this if not us, imperfect artists of love?