Louise Bourgeois
The is so much about Louise Bourgeois' work and thoughts that resonate with mine. She has influenced my work like no other artist. I find more whenever I look at her work again, or read what she has said. She used such a range of materials in astonishing ways and she was very clever too, I think, in the way she managed her themes, making certain things very public, but keeping others safely private.
I wrote my undergraduate dissertation about the way she used second hand clothing in her work.
I am very grateful that I have been able to see a number of here exhibitions over the past few years. The most recent was 'To unravel a torment', in February 2010 in The Netherlands. Her work communicates meaning very powerfully so it is fascinating to see it and to be in its presence. I am always touched, moved, and amazed.
She has been a role model for me in the ways I've used gestural stitch over the years. She used 'sloppy craft' instinctively, before it was named.
This excerpt describes her work well:
On hanging work, from my undergraduate dissertation:
‘Her work, however, does highlight the ‘feminine concerns’ of the use of cloth in art and its ‘power to shock and unsettle conventional ideas about the sculptural object’ (Nochlin 2007: 191). Her fabric works, ‘despite their rejection of conventional notions of sculpture...share certain essential properties with conventional sculpture in bronze, clay or marble’ (ibid.). The power of this work, however, lies in the ‘departures from the niceties of the traditional media’ (ibid.). In Bourgeois’ stitched work, the ‘grotesque handiwork’ and the ‘deliberate ferocity of bad sewing’ challenges the gendered expectations of work with cloth (ibid.). In Pink Days and Blue Days (Fig. 1) I suggest that the contrast between the ephemeral baby blue and pink clothing with the bones as hangers also challenges those expectations.
For Bourgeois, her use of clothing also has associations with death and the abject, but unlike Boltanski’s work, it is a very personal memorial, as discussed earlier. [i] Her fabric sculptures invoke an abject response through ‘some overtone ...of horror...’ which makes us ‘uncomfortable in our skin...which, these works remind us, is only a temporary covering…and a highly vulnerable one’ (Nochlin 2007: 190). In Pink Days and Blue Days (Fig. 1), the ephemeral clothing hanging from bones conjures up notions of mortality. ‘This sculptural presence of the skeleton, apart from its morbid effect, invokes the structures of the human body when it has been stripped of flesh, when only the ghostly presence of the empty garments remains…such works are simultaneously grotesque and troubling…’(Bernadac 2006: 154)
The contrast between the insubstantial clothing and the metal structure and hefty bones is highly disturbing. When Bourgeois declares, ‘My clothes…have always been a source of intolerable suffering because they hide an intolerable wound’ (in Celant 2010: 120), I think she provides a key to this feeling of abjection. Hanging the garments also emphasises the sculpture’s ‘fragility and vulnerability’ (Larratt-Smith 2011). Bourgeois asserts that the hanging thing ‘…is very helpless’ (in Nixon 2005:170) and ‘Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence and doubt’ (in Larratt- Smith 2011). It is clearly significant to her. I think the hanging motif distinguishes ‘very different identities for (her) sculpture…suggesting a kind of displacement’ (Barlow 1996: 9) which also adds to the feeling of abjection.
I suggest that it is understandable, then, that used clothing and its connotations of absence and death invokes an abject response. This inevitably adds further unsettling meanings to the use of second hand clothing in art.’ (Baker, 2014)
Baker, L (2014) Second skin: used clothing in the works of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski Undergraduate dissertation Available at: https://www.academia.edu/32294698/Second_skin_used_clothing_and_representations_of_the_body_in_the_work_of_Louise_Bourgeois_and_Christian_Boltanski (Accessed 29 April 2020)
Keh, P, (2014) Louise Bourgeois’ hang-ups are revealed in ’Suspension’ at New York’s Cheim & Read Available athttps://www.wallpaper.com/art/louise-bourgeois-hang-ups-are-revealed-in-suspension-at-new-yorks-cheim-read (Accessed 15 May 2020)
[i] Her assistant, Gorovoy says ‘… While she never talked about death…she wondered what would happen to all this stuff she had saved for so long and had so much meaning for her... she wanted to use this raw material to make sculpture that would survive beyond her’ (in Wroe 2013).
I wrote my undergraduate dissertation about the way she used second hand clothing in her work.
I am very grateful that I have been able to see a number of here exhibitions over the past few years. The most recent was 'To unravel a torment', in February 2010 in The Netherlands. Her work communicates meaning very powerfully so it is fascinating to see it and to be in its presence. I am always touched, moved, and amazed.
She has been a role model for me in the ways I've used gestural stitch over the years. She used 'sloppy craft' instinctively, before it was named.
This excerpt describes her work well:
On hanging work, from my undergraduate dissertation:
‘Her work, however, does highlight the ‘feminine concerns’ of the use of cloth in art and its ‘power to shock and unsettle conventional ideas about the sculptural object’ (Nochlin 2007: 191). Her fabric works, ‘despite their rejection of conventional notions of sculpture...share certain essential properties with conventional sculpture in bronze, clay or marble’ (ibid.). The power of this work, however, lies in the ‘departures from the niceties of the traditional media’ (ibid.). In Bourgeois’ stitched work, the ‘grotesque handiwork’ and the ‘deliberate ferocity of bad sewing’ challenges the gendered expectations of work with cloth (ibid.). In Pink Days and Blue Days (Fig. 1) I suggest that the contrast between the ephemeral baby blue and pink clothing with the bones as hangers also challenges those expectations.
For Bourgeois, her use of clothing also has associations with death and the abject, but unlike Boltanski’s work, it is a very personal memorial, as discussed earlier. [i] Her fabric sculptures invoke an abject response through ‘some overtone ...of horror...’ which makes us ‘uncomfortable in our skin...which, these works remind us, is only a temporary covering…and a highly vulnerable one’ (Nochlin 2007: 190). In Pink Days and Blue Days (Fig. 1), the ephemeral clothing hanging from bones conjures up notions of mortality. ‘This sculptural presence of the skeleton, apart from its morbid effect, invokes the structures of the human body when it has been stripped of flesh, when only the ghostly presence of the empty garments remains…such works are simultaneously grotesque and troubling…’(Bernadac 2006: 154)
The contrast between the insubstantial clothing and the metal structure and hefty bones is highly disturbing. When Bourgeois declares, ‘My clothes…have always been a source of intolerable suffering because they hide an intolerable wound’ (in Celant 2010: 120), I think she provides a key to this feeling of abjection. Hanging the garments also emphasises the sculpture’s ‘fragility and vulnerability’ (Larratt-Smith 2011). Bourgeois asserts that the hanging thing ‘…is very helpless’ (in Nixon 2005:170) and ‘Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence and doubt’ (in Larratt- Smith 2011). It is clearly significant to her. I think the hanging motif distinguishes ‘very different identities for (her) sculpture…suggesting a kind of displacement’ (Barlow 1996: 9) which also adds to the feeling of abjection.
I suggest that it is understandable, then, that used clothing and its connotations of absence and death invokes an abject response. This inevitably adds further unsettling meanings to the use of second hand clothing in art.’ (Baker, 2014)
Baker, L (2014) Second skin: used clothing in the works of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski Undergraduate dissertation Available at: https://www.academia.edu/32294698/Second_skin_used_clothing_and_representations_of_the_body_in_the_work_of_Louise_Bourgeois_and_Christian_Boltanski (Accessed 29 April 2020)
Keh, P, (2014) Louise Bourgeois’ hang-ups are revealed in ’Suspension’ at New York’s Cheim & Read Available athttps://www.wallpaper.com/art/louise-bourgeois-hang-ups-are-revealed-in-suspension-at-new-yorks-cheim-read (Accessed 15 May 2020)
[i] Her assistant, Gorovoy says ‘… While she never talked about death…she wondered what would happen to all this stuff she had saved for so long and had so much meaning for her... she wanted to use this raw material to make sculpture that would survive beyond her’ (in Wroe 2013).