You Don’t Love Me
- Artist: Ken Lum
- Date: 1994
- Medium: Photograph, c-print mounted on pvc and enamel paint on aluminium
- Dimensions: image: 1830 × 1219 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “You Don’t Love Me” by Ken Lum, created in 1994. The work adopts the bold, eye‑catching style of a public billboard—Lum’s Portrait‑Repeated Text series. Instead of selling a product, the image and its caption invite viewers to empathise with everyday people. The photograph is printed on PVC and finished with enamel paint on aluminium, giving it a glossy, street‑wise finish. Lum was concerned with the socio‑economic pressures faced by working‑class Vancouver in the 1990s, and he says he’s interested in “the little daily eruptions that seem to run counter to the way things ‘ought’ to be.” By placing the piece where it might appear on a billboard or outdoors, he blurs the line between art and public messaging, urging us to pause and notice the real, lived moments that often go unnoticed.
See it in person
You Don’t Love Me is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
