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13/7/2011

Louise Bourgeois

Galerie Fahnemann, Berlin

"Fears keep the world in suspense" wrote Louise Bourgeois in her diary during 1973, and even at an age of well over 80 she spoke of "la peur de vivre" as an artistic impetus and the starting point for her claustrophobic cells, enigmatic images and mysterious architectural creations. Her works are constructed out of events, some of which took place long ago. They make Bourgeois’ personal past tangible. This orientation inwards, towards her own history, is by no means anecdotal - it is the motor for existential questions. In this respect, Louise Bourgeois’ art is economics of recollection. For this reason, it is impossible to divide her work into stylistic phases, and its structure emerges rather more from different threads of recollection which appear repeatedly — often at times with quite long intervals. Her graphic work in particular is characterised by almost obsessive continuity: she produced drawings and prints in comprehensive series and innumerable variations, as an artistic equivalent to existential experiences.

"If the work of art is a solution to the problem of the traumatised artist. How will its form appear?" the artist asked herself. Her answer lies in the architectonic metaphors which run through her work as dominant motifs concerning existential questions of life. Bodily functions and emotional effects find their expression in architectonic equivalents. The human figure disappears in niches and cells, merges into architectonic-geometric forms. Bourgeois herself repeatedly points to the fact that geometry is a guarantee of stability for her. In a certain sense, the classical ideal of beauty in calculable systems of order symbolises honesty. It gives a rational framework to her work with grief, anger and violence.

The hand-coloured drypoint engravings from the series The Puritan now being presented in Galerie Fahnemann also identify Bourgeois as a descendant of both Descartes and Freud. The Puritan is based on personal experiences which the artist already wrote down in 1947 as a parable concerning the failure of a love affair. The eight triptychs, each consisting of one sheet of text and two differently coloured etchings, tell the story of the relationship between a man and a woman. The series is about a confession of faith in oneself, in one’s own wishes and longings, and the fact that this is an essential precondition to love for others. New York is the metaphor of this relationship, and the intimacy of the graphic works is well-suited to the topic.

The exhibition is supplemented by four tableaux which the artist assembled by taking one motif from each of three, four, six and eight differently coloured sheets.

Louise Bourgeois was born in France in 1911, and she has lived in the USA since 1938. Originally, she worked in the outer spheres of Surrealism, but without ever joining a specific group. Her sculptural work betrays a working method oriented on processes and a strong interest in the tactile qualities of her material. The paper works, kept back for a long time by the artist and therefore presented to the public for the first time in the eighties, may be seen as a background to her entire work. In the meantime, Louise Bourgeois has come to be viewed as one of the most important representatives of post-war American art and as an influential pioneer of a feminist art whose representatives investigate the social categorisations of gender and space.

Image: Louise Bourgeois, THE PURITAN
8 Triptychen -1990 -1997
Jedes Triptychon besteht aus 2 handcolorierten Radierungen (Gouache, Wasserfarben, Bleistift und Tinte) und einem Textblatt
Format Einzelblatt: 251,4 x 97,4 cm

Opening 14 July, 2011

Galerie Fahnemann
Fasanenstr. 61 10719 Berlin
opening hours: Tuesday - Friday, 1 - 6 pm
Saturday, 12 am - 4 pm

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