LOVE RULES
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About this Brooklyn Icon
The Brooklyn Museum is commemorating its 200th anniversary by spotlighting 200 standout objects in its encyclopedic collection.
“What do you do to give love? How is love breaking the rules you have in your life?” These are the main questions that artist Hank Willis Thomas responds to in his massive neon sculpture LOVE RULES. Thomas created the work to further the legacy of his late cousin Songha Thomas Willis, whose last words were “love over rules.” The illuminated portion of the text periodically rotates between LOVERULES, LOVERULES, LOVERULES, and LOVERULES, suggesting that love shifts depending on the people and circumstances involved.
Thomas’s artwork and statements are among the first things visitors see upon entering the Brooklyn Museum. This iconic image communicates to all entering the Museum that love is, in the artist’s words, “not an action of receiving, but rather an action of giving.”
Caption
Hank Willis Thomas (American, born 1976). LOVE RULES, 2018. Neon tubing, transformers, and electrical wires, 69 × 367 7/16 in. (175.3 × 933.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Contemporary Art Committee and William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund, 2019.10. (Photo: Photo: Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum)
Tags
Collection
Collection
Artist
Title
LOVE RULES
Date
2018
Medium
Neon tubing, transformers, and electrical wires
Classification
Dimensions
69 × 367 7/16 in. (175.3 × 933.3 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the Contemporary Art Committee and William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund
Accession Number
2019.10
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