Preface by Daniel Birnbaum, Ann-Sofi Noring. Text by Iris Müller-Westermann, Lea Vuong. Interview by Christiane Meyer-Toss.
Anyone who has stood underneath one of Louise Bourgeois' Mamans—her sculptures of spiders, symbolizing maternal protection—understands the singularity of her artistic approach. Stylistically, her pioneering body of work is complex: she deployed a wide variety of materials and practices—drawings, etchings, installations, works made of fabric, sculptures in wood, marble, bronze, latex, plaster and hemp—to address universal questions. This extensive monograph provides an overview of Bourgeois' artistic development, and presents a large number of works, including some that have never before been reproduced. The volume is grouped into themes that characterize her oeuvre, including memory, trauma, relationships, sexuality, fear and the difficulties of being an artist and mother at the same time. Personal photographs further document the artist's childhood and family life, with several letters and documents being made available for the first time. Born in Paris, where she studied with Fernand Léger, Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) moved to New York in 1938, where her first solo exhibition was held at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in 1945. She quickly developed a sculptural vocabulary that drew inventively and equally on Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism and psychoanalysis. Bourgeois had her first retrospective in 1982, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She died in May 2010.
"Blue Is the Color of Your Eyes" (2008) is reproduced from Louise Bourgeois: I Have Been to Hell and Back.
Louise Bourgeois' "The Birth" (2007) is reproduced from I Have Been to Hell and Back, published by Hatje Cantz and available at our new Los Angeles store, ARTBOOK @ Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, opening Sunday. Bourgeois is quoted, "The making of the art is an insight into the source of compulsion, a relief and a deflation of compulsion. Tension builds for an unknown reason, and yet it can be explored. Think of the top coming off a pressure cooker, and the steam releasing; or of the relief of sexual tension. Cravings like this, or like the craving for food, may be solved by understanding what they mean. Can you do without chocolate, for example? Perhaps the craving for chocolate is tied to a recollection of a kiss you did not get; the craving was not satisfied, and you feel the painful emotion. Art is the privilege of insight into craving. The craving is not cured, but it is acted out, indulged, and in some way understood. In my work, I see from the point of view of the seducer. The fact that I might be passively seductive doesn’t even enter my mind; I am the hunter who actively tries to seduce someone else. Of course, this effort is eternally in vain, but also eternally repeated. I am both the unfortunate seducer and the indefatigable seducer. The fact that I might appear seductive to someone else doesn’t even occur to me." continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 285 pgs / 250 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $60.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $79 ISBN: 9783775739702 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 6/23/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Preface by Daniel Birnbaum, Ann-Sofi Noring. Text by Iris Müller-Westermann, Lea Vuong. Interview by Christiane Meyer-Toss.
Anyone who has stood underneath one of Louise Bourgeois' Mamans—her sculptures of spiders, symbolizing maternal protection—understands the singularity of her artistic approach. Stylistically, her pioneering body of work is complex: she deployed a wide variety of materials and practices—drawings, etchings, installations, works made of fabric, sculptures in wood, marble, bronze, latex, plaster and hemp—to address universal questions. This extensive monograph provides an overview of Bourgeois' artistic development, and presents a large number of works, including some that have never before been reproduced. The volume is grouped into themes that characterize her oeuvre, including memory, trauma, relationships, sexuality, fear and the difficulties of being an artist and mother at the same time. Personal photographs further document the artist's childhood and family life, with several letters and documents being made available for the first time.
Born in Paris, where she studied with Fernand Léger, Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) moved to New York in 1938, where her first solo exhibition was held at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in 1945. She quickly developed a sculptural vocabulary that drew inventively and equally on Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism and psychoanalysis. Bourgeois had her first retrospective in 1982, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She died in May 2010.
