The Museum of Contemporary Art recently opened a comprehensive retrospective of seminal artist Louise Bourgeois. The exhibition is up until January 25th at Grand Avenue.
Born in Paris in 1911, Bourgeois continues to cultivate a remarkable body of work that spans nearly seven decades and a wide range of media, from sculptures, drawings, paintings and prints. Bourgeois’ distinctive approach to art-making defies categorization, instead reflecting her own idiosyncratic and individual iconographic language and approach to form, theme and motif. Overarchingly, Bourgeois’ works are informed by personal narrative and memory, and by extension explore various psychological states of trauma and anxiety, often within context of human relationships and the body. Through universal imagery that is at once autobiographical and empathetic, Bourgeois creates sculpture that operates on multiple levels, beginning with self and cascading into a collective consciousness.
The show presented a nice selection of key drawings, including works from her “Femme Maison,” series. Begun in 1947, this body of work depicts women are conjoined with houses; their upper bodies and faces obscured by the domestic, with the lower body exposed below. They have a surrealist feel, not unlike the scene in Alice in Wonderland where becomes disproportinately and suddenly too large for the house she is in. They also reflect a kind of primal anxiety of being trapped and embarrassed simultaneously. Bourgeoise has noted that the works address “the feeling of being trapped...and the theme of escape...On the one hand you are trapped by the past, and there is nothing you can do about it except running from it...the art comes from those unsatisfied desires."
Perhaps most stunning in person were her marble sculptures, including Sleep II and Cumul I. The dichotomy between the sensuality of the organic, fleshy forms and the cold finality of the hard marble evoked remarkable tension and beauty, not unlike the endeavors of Auguste Rodin.
The detail of her fabric works culled from her own clothes and household items also created a powerful presence. The diaristic nature of the materials combined with the human imagery gave them an uncanny and macabre quality. Calling to mind flesh like, fetishistic effigies, they are at once seductive and repulsive.
MOCA’s Education department has orchestrated a number of related events to accompany the exhibition, ranging from a Sculpture and Installation lecture series beginning November 22nd, and atalk by Jeremy Strick, MOCA director and Bourgeois scholar Thursday, November 20th at 6:30pm.
Image Credits:
Images courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art
Louise Bourgeois in 1990 with her marble sculpture, Eye to Eye
1970
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Raimon Ramis
Femme Maison
1947
Ink and pencil on paper
9 15/16 x 7 1/8 in.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Eeva Inkeri
COUPLE IV
1997
Fabric, leather, stainless steel, plastic, wood and glass Victorian vitrine
72 x 82 x 43 in.
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Courtesy Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve, and Hauser & Wirth
Photo by Christopher Burke
Sleep II
1967
Marble, on two wooden timbers
Courtesy Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve and Galerie Hauser & Wirth
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Peter Bellamy
Arch of Hysteria
1993
Courtesy Cheim and Reid, Galerie Karsten Greve and Galerie Hauser and Wirth ˆ the artist. Photo: Allen Finkelman
Polished Bronze
83.8x101.6x58.4cm
Untitled
1986
Watercolor, ink, oil, charcoal and pencil on paper
23 3/4 x 19 in.
Courtesy Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve, and Hauser & Wirth
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Christopher Burke
The Blind Leading the Blind
1947–1949
Wood, painted pink
70 3/8 x 96 7/8 x 17 3/8 in.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Bruce Jones
Cumul I
1969
Marble, wood plinth
22 3/8 x 50 x 48 in.
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Red Room (Child)
1994
Mixed media
83 x 139 x 108 in.
Collection Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal
ˆ Louise Bourgeois
Photo by Marcus Schneider
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