Louise Bourgeois
dal 23/10/2008 al 24/1/2009
Segnalato da
23/10/2008
Louise Bourgeois
Museum of Contemporary Art - MOCA, Los Angeles
The retrospective includes a number of significant works from Los Angeles collections one new work completed in the last few months by Bourgeois, who at 96 continues to make art almost daily. With over 150 works dating between 1938 and 2008, the exhibition includes the artist's earliest paintings and works on paper, sculptures made in a variety of materials and small-scale hand-made objects. The themes favored by Bourgeois include maternity, the couple, childhood, the body, sexuality, gender, and autobiography.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), presents the first major travelling survey
of the work of pioneering artist Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911) in more than two decades. Louise Bourgeois is
organized by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and curated by Frances Morris, head of
collections, Tate Modern; Marie-Laure Bernadac, chief curator of contemporary art, Louvre; and Jonas Storsve,
curator, Musée national d’art moderne, Cabinet d’art graphique, Centre Pompidou. The Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, is the fourth venue of an ambitious international tour that includes Tate Modern,
London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
MOCA’s presentation, which is organized by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge,
includes a number of significant works from Los Angeles collections that will not be seen elsewhere.
Also exclusive to the three U.S. presentations will be at least one new work completed in the last few
months by Bourgeois, who at 96 continues to make art almost daily. Louise Bourgeois is on view at
MOCA Grand Avenue from October 26, 2008 through January 25, 2009.
“I am honored and thrilled to present this landmark showcase of Louise Bourgeois’s work at MOCA,”
said MOCA Director and Bourgeois scholar Jeremy Strick. “Louise is an important artist who has created
an enormous body of work that engages with most of the major international avant-garde artistic
movements of the 20th century—from surrealism and primitivism to conceptual art and assemblage. And
yet, she has always maintained her identity as an independent artist, positioned at the forefront of
contemporary art practice, giving great inspiration to many others.”
Louise Bourgeois’s long and distinguished career has engaged both modern and traditional techniques,
exploring various themes in a range of styles, from abstraction to the ready-made. With over 150 works
dating between 1938 and 2008, the exhibition includes the artist’s earliest paintings and works on paper;
sculptures made in a variety of materials, including wood, steel, plaster, latex, marble, and bronze;
large-scale installations from the 1980s and ’90s; a broad selection of drawings and prints from
throughout her career; small-scale hand-made objects; and her most recent works, which utilize fabric.
This unique, must-see presentation also reunites many of Bourgeois’s most well-known pieces, including
The Blind Leading the Blind (1947–49), Fillette (Sweeter Version) (1968–99), and a number of her
powerful Cell installations, such as Cell (Choisy) (1990–93), Cell (You’d Better Grow Up) (1993), Red
Room (Child) (1994), Red Room (Parents) (1994), and Spider (1997). Louise Bourgeois is an opportunity
to discover the artist’s most important works and explore the core themes that unite them across media.
Bourgeois has said that her childhood, which was rich with both craft and symbolism, is the source all of
her artwork and its themes. Born to a family of weavers, Bourgeois spent her early years surrounded by
fabrics and textiles, as she played an active role in her family’s business of repairing and restoring
tapestries. Sewing needles signified restoration for Bourgeois, as she witnessed her mother’s constant
efforts at conservation and repair; hence, a number of the artist’s large-scale sculptures take the form of
needles, evoking both the psychological and physical symbolism of the device and its magic power. The
spider, itself a weaver and repairer, is another highly charged figure that appears frequently in
Bourgeois’s work. Other themes favored by Bourgeois include maternity, the couple, childhood, the
body, sexuality, gender, and autobiography.
About the Artist
Born in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois studied under a variety of artists during the 1930s, including the
cubist painter and sculptor Fernand Léger. In 1938, she moved to New York, where she continues to live
and work to this day. Bourgeois’s 1982 solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York was
the museum’s first-ever retrospective of a female artist. Bourgeois has exhibited in numerous museums
and galleries worldwide, and her work is in major public and private collections throughout the world.
Catalogue
Louise Bourgeois is accompanied by a fully illustrated, 320-page catalogue that provides an overview of
Bourgeois—not only as an influential creator of sculpture, installation, drawing, and printmaking, but also
as a writer, critic, and diarist. The catalogue is organized in a unique glossary format that provides
insights into major themes and significant works in Bourgeois’s oeuvre. The glossary includes
contributions from numerous prominent writers—including essays by Paulo Herkenhoff, Brooke Hodge, Julia Kristeva, Donald Kuspit, Elizabeth Lebovici, Frances Morris, Mignon Nixon, Linda Nochlin, Alex
Potts, and Robert Storr—as well as selected writings by the artist. A bibliography, full chronology, and
exhibition checklist are included. MOCA’s edition features a foreword by Director Jeremy Strick. Edited
by Frances Morris and published by Tate Modern, London, the catalogue is available in both hardcover
and softcover editions ($65 and $45, respectively) and can be purchased at all three MOCA Store
outlets, as well as moca.org.
Image: Louise Bourgeois in 1990 with her marble sculpture, Eye to Eye 1970 © Louise Bourgeois. Photo by Raimon Ramis
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Elizabeth Hinckley Tel 310/854-8199 ehinckley@rogersandcowan.com
Lyn Winter Tel 213/633-5390 lwinter@moca.org
MEDIA PREVIEW Friday, October 24, 2008 10am–1pm MOCA Grand Avenue
MOCA Grand Avenue
250 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles
MOCA Grand Avenue and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA are open 11am to 5pm on Monday and Friday; 11am to 8pm on
Thursday; 11am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday; and closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. General admission is $10 for adults;
$5 for students with I.D. and seniors (65+); and free for MOCA members, children under 12, and everyone on Thursdays from 5pm
to 8pm, courtesy of Wells Fargo.