ODE TO LOUISE

Falling in love

My love affair with Louise Bourgeois (LB) began in 2009 when June - a fellow student -  introduced me to her art work while we were studying art therapy.  I was immediately excited by LB's use of textiles.  As I read more about her work, I respected her tenacity and unapologetic creativity.  She was driven to create and only achieved fame when she was older. The business of sculpting was a man's world and it took a long time for her work to be recognised.  She continued to work into her nineties completing her final pieces of art only one week before she died.



Louise Bourgeois with her amazing hand

To Paris with dreadlocks

 In 2010 I  visited Paris with dreadlocks and my husband Rob. (As part of my felting obsession I wanted my hair felted.  I spent way too much money and time at the hair dressers fulfilling my passion for knotted fibres. Still it was quite a groovy 'do' for the Parisian sidewalks.)  This was my first time to Paris. The galleries, the public art and the appreciation of art was so inspiring.  On weekends people go to galleries - almost like we go to the footy. In fact the day we went to the La Orangerie to see the Monet water lillies was Grand Final day.  We rang to tell our kids that we were viewing a Monet water lillies painting and all that they could tell us was that there was a draw in the Grand Final and it was going to be replayed next week! 

Ahh the public art...bumped into a Thomas Moore on the street

 

Even the confetti was romantic in Paris!




but it was Vincent that stole my heart...the light he captured
 in his paintings seduced me

I expected to fall in love with Monet.....

   

I had to see this particular tapestry titled La Dame à la Licorne
in the Musée de Cluny.  I love this image when the Unicorn first sees himself.
This image was on the front cover of one of my favourite art therapy books.

 

 

 

The view from the apartment - gotta love those rooftops. Our
apartment was fabulous - to the left was the Eiffel Tour that
sparkled like magic on the hour!
 

 

Loved the exotic gum leaves in amongst the roses!

 

 

Louise on tap

My first gallery visit was to the Pompadour and I literally stumbled across a room full of Louise Bourgeois paintings and sculpture. I was struck by the strength of her artwork. I was attracted, repulsed and in awe of her ability to express her pain and her strength through her art. 

the breathing the palpitations the hot flashes...I could so identify with this

 

 

Big powerful and fascinating images. Phallic sculptures.

 

Louise  Bourgeois Cumul I, 1968 

 

Extreme tension - more hands

 At last I meet "Maman"

On our last day in Paris we decided to look in one more art gallery. I cannot remember the name of the gallery.  We were in between exhibitions and there was not a lot on offer.  Still they suggested we might like to look at some of their permanent art collection.  As I walked down a flight of stairs my heart missed a beat,  there stood a Louise Bourgeois spider. 

The setting was terrible but it did not distract from the haunting nature of
these sculptures.  Once again I could belong to the landscape of the sculpture.
I could walk around and under and see it from many perspectives.

 

Large, hunting, disturbing, lurking.

 

It was ominous and terrifying - I felt like it could devour me.

I was hooked.

I returned from Paris a passionate fan of Louise Bourgeois work.  I was delighted to see an exhibition in February 2013 at the Heide Gallery Melbourne.  This highlighted her fabric works. For my 49th birthday I went to see the exhibition.   I was once again taken on a journey that thrilled and disturbed me.  I visited 4 times and each time my curiosity was inflamed. I came away feeling unsettled.  What is it about her artwork that connected so directly with my emotions?   (Stay tuned for another blog on this very question)



This is an article from an ABC journalist who captures the essence of this exhitibition(http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/Collins/Louise-Bourgeois-Heide-review-130215/default.htm, July 29th 2013)

Louise Bourgeois, late works and Australian artists

Courtney Collins

Posted: Friday, 15 February 2013 at 1:38pm

French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911 –2010) continued to create provocative works well into her 90s. Heide Museum of Modern Art presents an exhibition of her work focusing on the final fifteen years of her career and another exhibition that looks at the relationships between her art and 10 Australian artists. Courtney Collins finds living traces of the woman, nick-named ‘the Spiderwoman’.
‘I pick on everyone, dead or alive.’

- Louise Bourgeois in What is the Shape of This Problem? (1999)

There is a portrait of Louise Bourgeois taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1982 of the artist carrying Fillette. Bourgeois has tucked Fillette (1968), a penis-like sculpture, under her arm and she is holding onto it with one hand like it is both a weapon and a trophy.

I am moving into the exhibition Louise Bourgeois: Late Works at Heide Museum of Modern Art and despite how striking an object it is (you can see it for yourself in the catalogue) I am now not thinking at all about Fillette. I am thinking about Louise Bourgeois’ hands. Room to room, there is no escaping their concentrated presence.

Late Works is an exhibition of thousands and thousands of stitches, hand-sewn by Bourgeois, the cutting and stuffing of fabric to form human heads and hanging bodies. There is a feeling of the artist’s instinct for repair but then the feeling is swiftly disturbed by some deliberate decapitations such as Couple IV (1997). Throughout the exhibition, the first survey of Bourgeois’ work in Australia since her death in 2010, there’s the compounding and repeated drama of bodies missing heads and heads missing bodies.

I think I am taking a break from such drama, facing the ocean-coloured tapestries of The Waiting Hours (2007). At first look, the individual abstract works seem pretty and benign, so much so I imagine them all sewn together as a patchwork quilt covering a big old bed. But as I train my eyes over each delicate panel I do not realize each one is gently tipping me up until I am tipped over. They bring on crying.

I’m moving further in, taking in sculptures, fabric drawings, watercolours and embroidered texts. By the time I reach Spider (1997), a vast, five and a half metre-tall steel and mixed media sculpture, I am so convinced of the power of Bourgeois’ hands I cannot think of her dead, even at 99. She must have installed this work herself. She must be responsible for the fine weave of webs I can now see trailing these gargantuan spider legs.

I ask the guide with the peacock earrings who is responsible and she said, ‘That’s our resident wolf spider. She’s been very, very busy making webs.’

Next door, in Heide II, is Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists.

Del Kathryn Barton takes up the vision and in this case the needle, to thread together her own Bourgeois-inspired tapestries. Along with Barton, the second show features the work of Pat Brassington, Janet Burchill, Carolyn Eskdale, Brent Harris, Joy Hester, Kate Just, Patricia Piccinini, Heather B. Swann and Kathy Temin, all revealing the deliberate and sometimes unconscious influence of Borgeois.

Wolf spider or not, I take it all as proof that, even in death, Bourgeois’ hands continue to weave, repair and decapitate.

- Courtney Collins


Louise Bourgeois, 'Spider' (1997).(The Easton Foundation, New York, NY Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust / Licensed by VAGA, New York / Viscopy, Sydney)


Louise Bourgeois, 'Couple IV' (1997) (Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth. Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust)


Louise Bourgeois, Knife Figure (2002) and Untitled (2002) (Courtesy Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth. Copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust / Licensed by VAGA, New York / Viscopy, Sydney)


Louise Bourgeois: Late Works at Heide Museum of Modern Art is on show until 11 March, 2013

Louise Bourgeois and Australian Artists at Heide Museum of Modern Art is on show until 14 April 2013