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17/10/2012

Louise Bourgeois

La Casa Encendida, Madrid

curated by Danielle Tilkin

La Casa Encendida de Obra Social Caja Madrid celebrates its upcoming tenth anniversary (December 3 is the day itself) with a major exhibition bringing together works from the final ten years of one of the most interesting artists in decades. The indefatigable artist Louise Bourgeois (Paris 1911-New York 2010) worked until her last days. Blazing her personal and universal trail, she availed herself of her oeuvre to analyze her life experience as a woman in the 20th century.

In the works of her final ten years (the sculptures, drawings, cells, textile-based engravings, quilts and patchwork gathered together for the exhibition at La Casa Encendida), her obsessions visibly come to surface. The fixations are dealt with exhaustively, in depth, no holds barred. No matter what the distance or intensity might be of the event in question, her analysis is sober as it ponders on the life and work that were to leave their mark on the 20th century. Of the more than 60 works that make up the exhibit, only two, Rejection and Seven in bed, have been on view in Spain previously. These two were included in the exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art of Malaga in 2004.

Louise Bourgeois was nearly one hundred years old when she died in 2010, and she worked until the end of her life. In her final years she gave the finishing touches to her personal, albeit universal, pieces. Through her work and for over half a century, she has invited us to join her in her struggle, as a woman and as an artist, to build upon herself and “not be eliminated”. In Bourgeois’ own words: “My femininity has been gnawed by rats. Gnawed inside and out, as if it were an egg pricked by a pin, then sucked empty. (My femininity) needs to be strengthened, encouraged, turned into a ball that will bounce up to the ceiling.”

Belated Acknowledgement
As curator Danielle Tilkin says, Bourgeois did not receive full recognition as an artist until 1982, when she was 72 years old. That year the MoMA put together a retrospective that, for the first time, exhibited the work of this individual female artist at the New York landmark. “For many years it was, above all, other women, artists like her but younger, who found in her work the radical approach that would become the point of reference and common position to incorporate into their own assertions. But Louise is no activist: she is an individualist who, alone in her studio, takes on her demons and breaks free from them, giving shape to her thoughts, exorcising the conflicts and, finally, restoring order to her world,” says Tilkin.

Catalogue
On the occasion of the La Casa Encendida exhibition, a catalog edited jointly with Skira will be published. Including an introduction by the curator and data on the works in the exhibition, the catalog will also feature essays commissioned especially for publication from the following authors: Geneviève Breerette, Roger Dadoun, Françoise Gaillard and Elvan Zabunyan.

Audiovisuals
As a supplement to the works exhibited, and in the Audiovisual Hall, every Wednesday during the months of October through January we will screen two documentaries alternatively. These films are an exceptional way of accessing the artist; after seeing them we feel we have had the opportunity of knowing her. Her intelligent, unyielding and mysterious testimony allows us to come within reach of her life, her work and her oeuvre, all intertwined and firmly rooted in the subconscious that only the artist has access to.

Louise Bourgeois, Camille Guichard. France, 1993. 57 min. Original version, Spanish subtitles.
Louise Bourgeois. The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine, Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach. USA, 2008. 99 min. Original version, Spanish subtitles.

“I live in a tempest, and
I try to hold on
Not to words, but to
rafts.
I build all my
rafts, completely alone (5)”

Precisely as Louise Bourgeois expressed it in her notes, many filmmakers build their film-rafts to deal with the stormy seas of their thoughts, conflicts and most private experiences. In November and December, every Saturday and Sunday the cycle of contemporary film “Al hilo de Louise” (Spinning Louise’s Web) will present the most interesting proposals directed by women within the past two years. These works, by directors as influential as Urszula Antoniak, Julia Murat, Valérie Massadian, Dominga Sotomayor, Zoe Chantre and Yulene Olaizola, have been well received by specialized critics and have resonated in international film festivals.

Film cycle: “Al hilo de Louise” (Spinning Louise’s Web). Saturdays and Sundays, November and December. Saturdays at 20:00 and Sundays at 18:00.

“Art is an escape, not a destination”, Louise Bourgeois

For more information:
Area de Comunicación y Marketing La Casa Encendida Media: 00-34-91-506-3884 / 00-34-690-088-505 comunicacionlce@cajamadrid.es

La Casa Encendida
Ronda de Valencia, 2 28012 Madrid
Exhibition Halls A, B, C, D and E.
Opening hours: from Monday to Sunday from 10 am to 9:45 pm
Free admission.

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