louise bourgeois at the biennale of sydney 2010

louise bourgeois was born in paris in 1911 and moved to new york in 1938,
where she continued to live and work, until her death in 2010. for over 60 years,
bourgeois worked across disciplines, producing sculptures, drawings, paintings
and prints dealing with personal memory, emotion and the body. her work is currently
on show at the 17th biennale of sydney.

‘cell (glass spheres and hands)’, 1990-1993
glass, iron, wood, linoleum, canvas, marble
courtesy of the national gallery of victoria, melbourne, australia
image © designboom

first made in the 1980s, bourgeois’ ‘cells’ are large sculptural installations that play on
dual ideas of imprisonment and the comfort of enclosure. taking the form of circular
or cube-like cages or rooms, these symbolically rich environments are repositories of
memory and experience, filled with disparate objects such as figurative sculptures,
old clothes, furniture, household items, perfume bottles, wasps’ nests and personal memorabilia.
‘cell (glass, spheres and hands)’ (1990-1993) is a room inhabited by glass bubbles that sit
atop roughly made chairs. their contained form implies alienation and the denial of communication,
while their fragility and close placement suggests a frustrated but silent communion.
on an adjacent table, a pair of marble hands is clasped in despair. an overall impression
of vulnerability marks what could be a prison of the past, but also an attempt to understand
its intricacies and put them in some kind of order.

detail of the ‘cell’
image © designboom

view inside the ‘cell’ where glass spheres sit on top of roughly made chairs
image © designboom

a peak into the ‘cell’
image © designboom

alternate view
image © designboom

up close of the glass spheres
image © designboom

the cell where a pair of clasped marble hands lies on a table
image © designboom

broken glass exterior of the cell
image © designboom

installation view of ‘echo’ series, 2007 bronze, painted white and steel
courtesy cheim & read, new york and hauser & wirth
image © designboom

‘echo’ is a suite of seven bronze sculptures, cast from bourgeois’ discarded clothes
that have been draped, stretched and sewn together. alternatively slender or slumped
with bulbous folds and creases, they represent maternal feelings of nurturing warmth
and organic growth.

‘echo’, 2007
image © designboom

detail of the draping and cast textile textures
image © designboom

‘the couple’, a series of 18 bright red gouache drawings, depict stylized and ambiguous couplings,
with figures that smudge and bleed in an arresting visual metaphor for the blurred lines between
self and other in the struggles for an intimate, sustained and fertile relationship.

detail of ‘the couple’, 2007
photo by designboom