Louise Bourgeois || Articulated Lair, 1986 || Painted steel, rubber and metal
@MoMA, Midtown Manhattan
July 24th, 2018
Train of Thought
Tag: louise bourgeois
In The Long Run
If the crystal balls are not helping, there is always hope in dreamcatchers, voodoo dolls and Louise Bourgeois’ Articulated Lair (to this day I have no idea what these black objects, hanging like deflated balloons, might be).
Lee Bontecou
Untitled 1980-98
John Outterbridge
Broken Dance, Ethnic Heritage Series, c. 1978-82
Louise Bourgeois
Articulated Lair, 1986
The Long Run @MoMA, December 3rd, 2017
National Gallery of Canada || The Art
The building itself is so photogenic, one could spend hours trying to capture the gorgeous light-and-shadow play that goes on all day, thanks to its octagonal skylights. But that would only be half the fun; so today, let’s take it a step further and focus on the art.
Today and tomorrow and tomorrow… 
“Maman” the giant egg-carrying spider; bronze, stainless steel and marble, 1999 (cast 2003) by Louise Bourgeois.
”No Foreigners” (série Nos maîtres les fous / Our Insane Masters), 2016, acrylic on canvas by Cynthia Girard-Renard
”Casualties of Modernity”, 2015, mixed-media installation with HD video, by Kent Monkman
In this installation, Monkman’s drag-queen alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, an agent provocateur and trickster, appears on screen and in mannequin form clad in a PVC nurse’s outfit, tending to her patient, the wheezing cubism. The work is a satirical look at art through Miss Chief’s eyes, foregrounding the artist’s critique of modern art through the downfall of romanticism, cubism and primitivism.
”Eunoia”, 2013, steel extruded aluminum, acrylic and components by Daniel Young & Christian Giroux
”Dérive 45 & 46”, 2015, acrylic on canvas
”Vendredi 11 août 1989 – Mes idées s’envolaient aussitôt” [Friday 11 August 1989 – My ideas took flight immediately], 2014, vinyl and digital print mural by Latifa Echakhch
”Soundsuit”, 2015, mixed media including gramophone horn, ceramic birds, metal flowers, strung beads, fabric, metal and mannequin – by Nick Cave
Healing Rattles: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, 2010 by Angela Marston
Majestic, 2011, lamp posts, steel, glass, electricity, by Michel de Broin
De Broin’s array of revitalized New Orleans streetlamps, uprooted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, light up the area as night falls {source}
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
October 29th, 2017
National Gallery of Canada || Ottawa
What can a visitor do on a rainy October Sunday in Gananoque, apart from eat and sleep? Drive to Ottawa, of course. It’s only a two-hour drive, maybe less in good weather.
And what can a visitor do on a rainy October Sunday afternoon upon arrival in Ottawa with only a couple of hours to go before dark? Go straight to the National Gallery of Canada. Of course!
Housed in a stunning glass and granite building full of light that is carried from the skylights on the roof, the gallery is an excellent antidote to depressing weather. It was designed by Moshe Safdie, who is responsible for a number of iconic structures around the world, including, for example, the Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore, the infinity pool of which tops both the building and my personal wish-list.
Back in Ottawa; see these glass octagonal features on the roof? That’s how they look like on the inside, with the addition of white sails to diffuse the light.
“Maman” the giant egg-carrying spider outside the gallery, is a sculpture (1999, cast 2003) by Louise Bourgeois.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
October 29th, 2017
The Idiosyncratic Eyes of Mme Bourgeois
Staring into your soul.
House 1994
Marble
the puritan 1990-97 (text: 1947)
Folio set no. 3: engravings with selective wiping, gouache and watercolour additions
Lullaby 2006
Series of twenty-five screenprints on fabric: title sheet and twenty-four compositions
Bourgeois created shapes by turning and tracing common household objects – scissors, a knife and a candy dish, among them. She published this set herself, under the imprint Lison Editions. Lison, Lise, Lisette, Louison and Louisette were among her childhood nicknames.
Ode à l’Oubli 2004
Fabric illustrated book with thirty fabric collages and four lithographs
The pages of this book are composed of linen hand towels saved from her trousseau. Many contain the embroidered monogram LBG (Louise Bourgeois Goldwater). Bourgeois later issued and editioned version of this book in twenty-five examples. In that version, the pages are tied together through buttonholes instead of bound so all of the pages can be displayed simultaneously, as seen on this wall.
Untitled 1998
Fabric and stainless steel
Stamp of Memories I 1993
Drypoint with metal stamp additions
Sainte Sébastienne 1992
Drypoint
Triptych for the Red Room 1994
Aquatint, drypoint and engraving
“The subject of pain is the business I am in.“ – LB
Self Portrait 2007
Gouache on paper
Self Portrait 1990
Drypoint, etching and aquatint
I Redo (interior element) from the installation
I Do, I Undo, I Redo 1999-2000
Steel, glass wood and tapestry
Untitled 1940
Oil and pencil on board
Lacs de Montagne (Mountain Lakes), 1996 & 1997
Engraving and aquatint with watercolour, gouache and ink additions
Arch of Hysteria 1993
Bronze, polished patina
Spider 1997
Note from Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait, an exhibition that ran at the MoMA, until end January 2018: ”[…] explores the prints, books, and creative process of the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010). Bourgeois’s printed oeuvre, a little-known aspect of her work, is vast in scope and comprises some 1,200 printed compositions, created primarily in the last two decades of her life but also at the beginning of her career, in the 1940s. The Museum of Modern Art has a prized archive of this material, and the exhibition will highlight works from the collection along with rarely seen loans […].”
September 25th, 2017
Walking the Mall: Sculpture garden to Washington Monument
From the Capitol to the National Gallery Sculpture Garden.
The McGee Roadster, the 16th vehicle to be documented as national heritage by the HVA for the National Historic Vehicle Register and U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Historic American Engineering Record.
Robert Indiana, AMOR, conceived 1998, executed 2006.
Mark di Suvero, Aurora, 1992–93.
Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1996/1997.
Claes Oldenburg; Coosje van Bruggen, Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, 1999.
Roxy Paine, Graft, 2008–2009.
The Smithsonian Castle.
National Museum of African American History & Culture.
And, finally, the iconic obelisk in honour of George Washington.
April 23rd, 2017
