Louise Bourgeois
14 July - 06 August 2011
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| 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 |
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LOUISE BOURGEOIS
The Puritan
8 Triptychen -1990 -1997
14 July - 6 August, 2011
"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.
www.galerie-fahnemann.de
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