An hommage to an endless friendship, Louise Bourgeois X Jenny Holzer
The genesis of the exhibition started out at the death of Louise Bourgeois, in 2010. Thus, the American artist and friend of the artist Jenny Holzer contacted the Estate of the artist to develop a project and an exhibition in hommage to her lost friend.
At that time, the current director of the museum, Josef Helfenstein was the director of The Menil Collection in Houston. But the Estate of Louise Bourgeois contacted them to hold the show. A few days later, the director was appointed at the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Menil didn't followed up the project.
This project, which is unique in every way is a personal outlook on one of the masters of modern art in America. But, it's also a connection between a long line of projects created by the Kunstmuseum Basel, focusing on powerful women in art: Sophie Taueber-Arp (2021), Kara Walker (2021), Tacita Dean (2021-2022), Ruth Buchanan (2022), and, what's next ?
In a way, it's a new way of working for a museum and an archive to open up an exhibition without a fix curator but an artist and a friend of Bourgeois. Thus, the show is a unique perspective and in depth understanding of Bourgeois oeuvre, which unfold in the whole museum.
The titled of the exhibition "The Violence of Handwriting Across a Page" is a direct hommage to the two main practices of Bourgeois oeuvre, her diaries and her expression in writing.
A "cabinet de curiosité" in every room
In the first room of the exhibition, you enter into a "cabinet de curiosité", full of different object from different periods of Bourgeois oeuvres. While Jenny Holzer was creating the layout of the exhibition, she thought it will be better to focus on a single theme or a reflection of the environment of the studio and house of Bourgeois in each room.
Thus, the first room is a hommage to the studio of Louise Bourgeois and more precisely when she quit Europe to move to New York in 1938. She will start a new life with Robert Goldwater and their three sons.
While Europe is still in the war, she will find a new identity as an artist by shifting her practice from painting to sculpture, while keeping an eye on figuration. Thus, the room on the theme of architecture and building in the oeuvre of Bourgeois, while making a link between a series of objects and print of the 1940s.
With those first American work, she wants to define herself as a confinement artist, which deal with emotion, sexuality, suicide and jealousy as a trace of her life.
The second room of the exhibition is a mix between an installation of works of paper and watercolour (top) and a sculpture coming from a tree trunk. Thus, the theme is described as the connection between nature and the human body.
While the top down watercolours consists of view of the rivers, which is a recurring motif in the life of Bourgeois due to the Seine (Paris) and the Hudson (New York). Those works are combined by early drawings evoking the metaphor of life, flow, positivity and life, but also dark, deep and depression in this immense liquid...
On the other hand, the tree trunk sculpture made out of coloured marble is evoking, like a picture of Guiseppe Arcimbolodo the transformation of the human specie when it reindeer his natural habitat.
The two following rooms are dedicated to the use of materials in the oeuvre of Bourgeois. Thus, she will have an innovative twist on sculpture with "non-classical material" such as used tapestry, steel, paper, fabric and lead.
Speaking of Tapestry, the use of textiles was really important in the family of Bourgeois. Due to their two parents having a conservation and creation studio of tapestry, she will return back and forth between constructing new think and fixing it to give it a new life.
You are able to see this distinction in the fourth room and especially in the center of it with a sculpture / ready-made titled "Untitled". With this work combining a dress and a broom, she's making link to her role as a household, a wife, a woman and an artist. Opposite to it, a wall of different kings of drawings and textile are referring to her emotions, her desires and wishes.
While Louise Father dies in 1951, it will be the center of her life. Thus, at the center of the exhibition, you will encounter three works made around the installation "The Destruction of the Father" from 1974.
While the piece is one of the key oeuvre in Louise practice, it's based on her relation between her dominative father and her revenge on it, as a woman, a child and her family. Thus, the body of her father is installed on the table, while being eaten by the whole family.
On the other part of the room, you have one drawing titled "Fillette" which is an assemblage of her depiction of the fillette and the sexual orgasm of her father. And on the other part of the room, a soft sculpture hanging from the ceiling.
This application was developed by Jenny Holzer with Holition. With "LOUISE BOURGEOIS XX Augmented Reality App", available on the App Store and on the Google Play Store.
The next room is dedicated to a long series of works of coming from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Titled "Extreme Tension" and made in her late 90s, you are able to see a self-portrait of Bourgeois body, from the inside and out.
The next room is dedicated to Europe and her family and friend she lost there. Thus, a series of wooden sculpture. Arranged like a crown and dialoguing between each other, this sculpture we're made of wood and back painting by the late 40s. Next to them, you are able to find a series of works on paper around the them of separation.
The GRAND FINAL of the exhibition is the last gallery, with more than 200 works of arts installed from floor to ceiling. Mainly focus around the relation between the mother and the child, the installation is reminiscent of the last decade of the artist practice, working with red gouache and white paper.
Thus, each paper is like a relation, between the abstract shapes and her body. In contrast, two sculptures, coloured din red are creation a sense of passion, love, desire, sexuality and more negatively pain and blood. This is even more shown in the cell, where the relation between the child and herself are like a tension.
Beyond the museum, you are able to have a look at one sculpture titled "Twosome" and numerous works from the collection.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunstmuseum Basel | Neubau
Date: 19.2.2022 – 15.5.2022
Curator: Jenny Holzer and Anita Haldemann
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunstmuseum Basel OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunstmuseum Basel
Kunstmuseum Basel
St. Alban-Graben 8
CH-4010 Basel
Phone: +41 61 206 62 62
Fax: +41 61 206 62 52
Mail: info@kunstmuseumbasel.ch