About love and the gap between what we want, desire, long for, need – and reality.

Part of the exhibition ”In-Betweenness” at gallery Studio 44, Stockholm, January 2026.

”All You Need Is Love” is an installation with two photographs surrounding a large text scroll. The text consists of excerpts from love songs from the 1940s to the present day.

About the photographs
The two photographs are 100 x 100 cm each, mounted on 10 cm foam board/kapaskartong.
Concept, image processing and realization: Gunilla Leander
The couple: Maria Astrid Jansson and Anton L Samuelsson
Photographer: Ulf Aneer

About the text scroll
The text scroll is 150 cm wide and 5.5 meters high (4 meters visible), where the text consists of excerpts from love songs from the 1940s until today, written with Chinese ink on Fabriano drawing paper 200g.

The text scroll is like a Chinese scroll of calligraphy, or like a river of words of love. Something that just keeps going on.

Why a text scroll?
I am so fascinated by all the love songs that are constantly heard, everywhere in the world. Their impassioned lines of text which many times are theatrical and way too much. At the same time, these show our constant longing for love. And then I look around at what the world looks like. Why can’t we just settle for love …? Man’s Dilemma.

I have chosen love songs from the 1940s to the present day. I have also mixed both English and Swedish love songs, mostly English. But I could have chosen any language, because love songs exist in all languages – and from all eras. Even AI is now creating love songs … If you pick out lines of lyrics from love songs, some are filled with so much passion and overwhelming, almost laughable, expressions of emotion.

Reflections
Three young guys at the opening analyzed the work intensely and said that in our digital age where you scroll through the most fantastic expressions, the expectation of love becomes too great and you just want to constantly exchange it for something better and better. Whereas before you weren’t so stressed, you fell in love with a person and then stuck with that person your whole life (usually…).
What they told me made me sad

An elderly couple who had been married for 53 years looked at my work and said ”Love is work” and so did my aunt ”It is work that never ends and you can never take love for granted”.

But with love also come other feelings; sadness, jealousy, hatred, longing …

to be continued…

» Here you can read the entire text as PDF

©Gunilla Leander

Med stöd av Riksförbundet Sveriges Konstföreningar och Kulturrådet