MoMA
Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait
Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding
Portrait, until January 28, curated by Deborah Wye and Sewon Kang,
explores the prints, books, related sculptures and the creative process of the
celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010). Bourgeois’s printed oeuvre, a
little-known aspect of her work, is vast in scope and comprises some 1,200
printed compositions, created primarily in the last two decades of her life but
also at the beginning of her career, in the 1940s.
Photograph
and copyright Manfredi Bellati
“The spider—why the spider?
Because
my best friend was my mother and she
was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing,
reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable,
neat, and as useful as a spider.”
my best friend was my mother and she
was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing,
reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable,
neat, and as useful as a spider.”
Louise
Bourgeois – Spiders
Installation
Louise
Bourgeois is perhaps best known for sculptures of spiders, ranging in size from
a brooch of four inches to monumental outdoor pieces that rise to 30 feet. Long
a motif in Symbolist art, the spider encompassed several meanings for
Bourgeois, who cited it most frequently as a stand-in for her mother, a
tapestry restorer by trade who impressed Bourgeois with her steadfast
reliability and clever inventiveness. Yet Bourgeois also appreciated the spider
in more general terms, as a protector against evil, pointing out that this
crafty arachnid is known for devouring mosquitoes and thereby preventing
disease.
Louise
Bourgeois
at
the printing press in the lower level of her home/studio on 20th street, New York, 1995
Photograph
by Mathias Johansson
The
exhibition explores this celebrated artist’s prints and books, a little known
but highly significant part of Bourgeois’s larger practice. Her copious
production in these mediums—addressing themes that perennially occupied her,
including memory, trauma, and the body—is examined within the context of
related sculptures, drawings, and paintings. This investigation sheds light on
Bourgeois’s creative process, which is uniquely and vividly apparent through
the evolving states and variants of her prints; seeing these sequences unfold
is akin to looking over the artist’s shoulder as she worked.
My
Inner Life (#5) - 2008
etching
– gouache – watercolor –pencil – stitched text on fabric
My
Inner Life (#3): Eugenie Grandet - 2008
etching
– gouache – watercolor pencil
“My
poetic license is to remove the arms, to remove the head, and then, if I want,
to fetch them back.”
Louise
Bourgeois
The Puritan - Folio set no.3
engravings,
with selective wiping gouache and watercolor additions
Untitled (The Wedges) – 1950
painted
wood
Printed
grids, biomorphic ink drawings, and geometric wood totems are found in her
early years, organically shaped marble and plaster sculptures come later, and
an outpouring of abstract drawings and prints fills her last decade. For Bourgeois, abstraction was yet another
tool for understanding and coping with her feelings, which were always the
driving forces of her art. She used terms like “calming,” “caressing,” or
“stabbing” to describe strokes, and her drawn lines and evocative shapes
reflect shifting moods and perceived vulnerabilities.
“Clothing
is...an exercise of memory...
It
makes me explore the past...
how
did I feel when I wore that...”
Louise Bourgeois
By
2000, Bourgeois had turned to printing on old handkerchiefs, and then other
fabrics. She also constructed books of fabric collages. Printing on fabric was
a major preoccupation of Bourgeois’s later years and she highly valued her
collaboration with seamstress Mercedes Katz and the various printers with whom
she worked. The old fabrics she selected resonated with memories yet, on
occasion, she ran out of material when making an edition and had to seek out
matching fabrics. To this same end, she sometimes took advantage of digital
possibilities for duplicating aging or fading effects. In contrast to her
prints and books on paper, Bourgeois’s fabric works have a tactile presence
that gives them a decidedly sculptural dimension.
Ode
a L’Oubli – Ode to Forgetting – 2002
fabric
illustrated book – 32 fabric collages – two-hand addition - lithographed texts
and cover
Madeleine
– 2000
drypoint
– selective wiping – fabric
Spiral
Woman – 2001
Drypoint
– ink – pencil and gouache
The
Couple (from portfoglio La Reparation) – 2003
drypoint
– engraving – acquatint
“You
pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of
architecture.”
Louise
Bourgeois
She
said, “My skyscrapers reflect a human condition,” and here they became
personifications of loneliness, alienation, anger, and hostility. At that time,
Bourgeois also created her Femme Maison, depicting a female body topped by a
house. It became a feminist icon and was later issued as a print.
Femme
Maison – 1946-47
Oil
– ink on linen
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