Louise Bourgeois is best known for her sculpture, particularly the large, spider structures based on her mother. She was a woman in her 70s, 80s and 90s still working out her mommy and (mostly) daddy issues, and this raw, confused emotion showed in everything from her titles to the details of her installations. These works were balanced out by her more sexual pieces, oftentimes depicting blatant sexual acts and sexual organs (both singularly and en masse). There is also, of course, the famous photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe of Bourgeois in a fur coat laughing while holding a sculpture of a very large penis. It is with a similar frailty and humor that she created engravings for He Disappeared into Complete Silence, which is not actually on view anywhere at the moment but I just purchased and am SO pumped on. Each simple, geometric image comes with a short story or description, such as “Once a man was telling a story, it was a very good story too, and it made him very happy, but he told it so fast that nobody understood it.” Originally created in 1947, the beautiful, simplistic delivery of irony and loneliness still makes for a chuckle and singular tear.
Article originally published on the TENOVERSIX blog.
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