Louise Bourgeois: Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010 now open at Hauser & Wirth Somerset is a rare opportunity to see work from the private collection of one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century.
Exhibited publicly for the first time, the paintings, sculptures and works on paper span the breadth of the artist’s oeuvre and reveal highly personal memories and ideas, reflecting the complexity and intimacy of Bourgeois’ artistic practice.
Born in France in 1911 and working in America from 1938 until her death in 2010, Louise Bourgeois’ work is inextricably entwined with her life and experiences. For over seven decades, Bourgeois’ creative process was fuelled by an introspective reality, often rooted in cathartic reflections on early childhood trauma and frank examinations of female sexuality. Articulated by recurrent motifs (including body parts, houses and spiders), personal symbolism and psychological release, the conceptual and stylistic complexity of Bourgeois’ work – employing a variety of genres, media and materials – plays upon the powers of association, memory, fantasy and fear.
Presented across two galleries at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010 highlights the artist’s multiplicity of mind and material, along with the sensitivity and strength of Bourgeois’s artistic vision. The exhibition is curated by Benjamin Shiff, who played a major role in the re-emergence of printmaking in Louise Bourgeois’ practice in the late 1980s, and who remained an important force in her creative use of the medium up until her last years. Most of the works on paper were made during the last four years of the artist’s life, and often feature words or phrases which evoke associations and memories. “It is not an image I am seeking,” said Bourgeois. “It is not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving and of destroying.’
Louise Bourgeois: Drawing Intimacy 1939 – 2010 is now open at Hauser & Wirth Somerset and runs until 2 January 2023. For further information: hauserwirth.com
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Image: Installation view, Louise Bourgeois. Drawing Intimacy 1939-2010, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2022 Photo: Peter Mallet © The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022