Sculptor Louise Bourgeois returns to Paris with two important installations at the Palais de Tokyo. Although this artist of international stature was born in France in 1911, she’s more readily identified with the New York arts scene. It was her marriage to American art historian Robert Goldwater that brought her to the States in 1938. A year later, when war was declared in Europe, major figures such as Matta, Max Ernst, Dali and André Masson began to arrive in New York city. An artist in her own right, and perfectly bilingual, Bourgeois soon became a prominent member of the French Surrealist circle.
At the Palais de Tokyo a “joyful, singing” Bourgeois revisits the past in an experimental sound piece harking back to her childhood. Her adult life and career are now firmly anchored in America. Nonetheless, her work remains haunted by a French upbringing. Spiders are one of her chief symbols, recurrent since the beginning of the ’90s. However menacing or repulsive these insects may appear to some, as far as Bourgeois is concerned, they embody maternal love and protection. A throwback to the weavers working at giant looms, in her parents’ tapestry workshop/gallery, on the Left Bank of the Seine...
“Day Night Day” expresses the extraordinary artistic vitality of this 91-year-old with a special place in 20th century art. Museum director, Jerome Sans explains that Paris’ experimental multimedia arts space — launched last February — was initially contacted by Louise Bourgeois who’d conceived several projects specially for the Palais de Tokyo, feeling that the unique interactive nature of her concepts required this type of context.
Produced during the ’60s, a series inspired by a visit to Lascaux’s prehistoric caves led Louise Bourgeois to create environmental constructions conceived as sanctuaries, cocoons... Or, prisons. Rough and ragged on the exterior, these “lairs” were described by Bourgeois as “safe and warm — like a womb” inside. Other pieces such as the “Destruction of Father” are less cozy. Not for the faint of heart, this is a powerful, terrifying evocation of cannibalism at the family dinner table, in which the father ends up as the “evening meal”...
Still hard at work, Bourgeois is often seen as an “artist’s artist.” Relationships are the central theme underlying half a century of artistic self-questioning. Her continuing concern with the fears, anxieties, anger and loneliness inherent to the human condition have led several generations of younger artists to admire her. So, it’s appropriate for this “grand dame” of contemporary art to exhibit her unique installations in this fresh context. However, viewers should beware... During her last Paris show in 1995 — a Museum of Modern Art retrospective — she commented... “In real life I identify with the victim, that’s why I turned towards art. In my art, I’m the killer.”
Louise Bourgeois, le jour la nuit le jour — to Nov 24, daily except Mon. noon to midnight, Palais de Tokyo, Site de Creation Contemporaine, 13 av du Président Wilson, 16e, M° Iéna, tel: 01 47 23 54 01.
Plus... Recent Works (a new series of sculptures and 50 drawings) — to Nov 9, Tue-Sat 11am to 7 pm, Galerie Karsten Greve, 5 rue de Belleyme, 3e, M° St-Sébastien-Froissart, tel: 01 42 77 19 37
