How to Be an Artist, According to Louise Bourgeois
Artsy Editorial
Louis Bourgeois (1911-2010) is one of the most important artists of the modern era. She earned her place in the canon for her exceptional contribution to Modern sculpture.
She began her artistic career as a painter and printmaker but turned to sculpture in the late 1940’s.
All the while, she constantly made drawings on paper and practiced printmaking for her own illustrated books and print portfolios. Many of her works on paper were the vehicle to experiment prior to creating an object.
This work is evocative of Bourgeois' best works on paper exploring themes of sexuality, gender roles, and patriarchy.
Throughout Bourgeois’s career, she exhibited in the most prestigious museums and art galleries. In 1993, she represented the United States at the Venice Biennale.
Following this honour, she was selected by The Tate Modern in 2000 to create a work for the Unilever Series in Turbine Hall. Shortly after the museum installed on its outdoor terrace one of her giant, iconic and imposing "Spider" sculptures.
Since her passing, there has been a renewed interest in her work; New York's Guggenheim Museum, London's Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou in Paris have all hosted comprehensive exhibitions of her work.
Virtually every gallery of Modern Art has invested in a work by Louise Bourgeois because without one their collection would be incomplete.
Signature: Signed and numbered by the artist
Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
About Louise Bourgeois
Beginning her artistic practice in her native Paris, Louise Bourgeois was originally associated with Surrealism due to her integration of fantastic elements into her prints and sculptures. Upon moving to New York in 1938, Bourgeois focused primarily on sculpture, crafting biomorphic forms that curator Lucy Lippard has described as enacting the physicality of the body as experienced from within. Bourgeois’s suggestive organ-like contours and early use of unconventional materials (like resin, latex, and cloth) allude to a tension between quintessentially male and female forms. This recurrent interrogation of the male/female dialectic aligns Bourgeois with the Feminist movement, but her work has also been examined through the lens of Abstract Expressionism, as she exhibited with artists such as Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.
French-American, 1911-2010, Paris, France, based in New York & Paris
Solo Shows
2018
2018
Los Angeles,
Louise Bourgeois. The Red Sky
2017
2017
Marlborough Gallery, New York,
2017
North Adams,
Louise Bourgeois
2015
1997
Milan,
Group Shows
2016
London,
New Tate Modern Switch House: Extension and Installation
2016
2015
2015
2013
