LOUISE BOURGEOIS HUGE RETROSPECTIVE AT THE LONG MUSEUM IN SHANGI
For the first time in China, a large-scale retrospective of Louise Bourgeois prolific artworks will be held. Curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, The Eternal Thread explores the Franco-American artist –gone two years ago- work with an inauguration in November 3rd at the Long Museum of Shanghai.
Conceived as one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Bourgeois' work explores the psychological depths of individuals. In what is one of the most important retrospectives in the career of the artist, The Eternal Thread takes a tour through her most important works, such as her sculptures of the late 40s, the installations of the 90s and her famous Maman sculpture - a giant sculpture of an arachnid-.
The name of the exhibition alludes to a thematic thread that extends throughout all of Bourgeois works. Likewise, a direct metaphor is established with the exhibited pieces: the hair of her first drawings, the ropes that hold her hanging sculptures; the fabrics, the clothes, the sheets and towels as raw material. All this within the notion of temporality, vulnerability and ambivalence that the work of the Franco-American manifests. And do not forget that the artist was born in a family dedicated to the work of tapestries.
All this constitutes an extensive thematic and aesthetic thread that characterizes the prolific and intimate work of Bourgeois.
As for the psychological dyes -properties of psychoanalysis, very much in vogue during the production of the artist-, the most significant are her spider sculptures that represent, like a great weaver, her own mother. In this way, the thread that the mother worked in the workshop in France and then Burgeois overturned in their work is a link between the mother and herself, like a huge umbilical cord. Finally, it should be noted that the technique of weaving means in Burgeois work the possibility of developing a network of signs that reconcile it with its past and its future: that is why we speak of an eternal thread.
For all this and much more, The Eternal Thread, for the first time in the East, emerges not only as a great opportunity to raise awareness of one of the most significant artists of Western modern and contemporary art, but it is also a large fabric that unites east with west through artistic expression.
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The Couple, Collection Louise Bourgeoise Trust. Ph: Christopher Burke.
