The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Louise Bourgeois. Structures of existence: The Cells, a broad representation of the innovative and sophisticated sculptural works developed by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, over two decades of his career.
In this exhibition, organized by Haus der Kunst (Munich) in collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the public can know and experience loaded 28 architectural spaces of emotion that separate the outer and inner world, in each case representing a particular microcosm. The exhibition in Bilbao is possible through the sponsorship of the BBVA Foundation.
The ideas and formal innovations of Louise Bourgeois, as their approach to psychoanalysis and feminism, its environmental facilities and theatrical formats, have become fundamental issues of contemporary art. An excellent example of this are the cells, the series that began in 1986 with Bourgeois Lair articulated (Articulated Lair) piece and consists of approximately 60 unique works.
On the occasion of this exhibition, I numbered I to VI Cells are grouped for the first time since 1991, when they were originally gathered at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. The term "cell" arose during the preparations for this exhibition at the Carnegie. For Bourgeois, the English term "cell" has different connotations, since it refers both to the biological cell from a living as individual cell in a prison or a monastery body.
Three years later, in 1994, the artist created his first sculpture of a spider. Although already over 80 years old at the time, Louise Bourgeois managed to once again reinvent their working methods and perform some of their larger pieces thanks to the acquisition in 1980 of his first major studio. Until then he had worked at his home in Chelsea, where the width of the spaces, just four meters, was decisive for the dimensions of his sculptures. His new studio in Brooklyn paved the way for large pieces.
The study also offered to Bourgeois a variety of new materials. Thus, objects that came from the neighborhood and private life of the artist are integrated into cells, such as steel shelves from the previous use of his studio as a textile factory (articulated Lair, 1986) or a water tower taken from its roof [precious Liquids (precious Liquids), 1992]. When I finally had to leave the studio in Brooklyn in 2005, he retained its spiral staircase, which later joined the last work belonging to this series: Cell (Last rise) [Cell (The Last Climb), 2008].
Cells series revolves around the desire to remember and forget at once. "You have to tell your story, and you have to forget. Forget and forgive. That frees you up," said Bourgeois once. In this sense, the cells contain references to people and past experiences. Needles, threads and spindles are integrated in the works allude to the childhood of the artist and the office of his parents, and his mother was restorer of valuable tapestries. Cells also speak of abandonment, betrayal and loss, partly because of the great tension that existed in the Bourgeois family. On the one hand, Louise's father tricked his mother with the au pair, Sadie, family who lived with them for almost a decade. On the other, in a reversal of the usual roles, Louise had to care for her mother, who contracted a serious illness and asked Louise to help her hide from his father how worse. Louise was so immersed in a web of conflicting emotions: admiration and solidarity, anger and helplessness.
The artist herself related his work with their personal traumas. In 1982 he created an autobiographical text illustrated for Artforum that revolved around the traumatic experiences of his childhood. In the same period, the Museum of Modern Art in New York paid tribute to the artist, who already had 70 years with a retrospective. It was the first time the museum dedicated a retrospective exhibition to a woman.
As new sculptural category, the Cells Louise Bourgeois,
"are located somewhere between the museum landscape, scenery, environment or installation; It is a sculptural entity which, at this scale and formal level, has no parallel in the history of art."
Julienne Lorz.
