Louise Bourgeois: "o retorn do desejo proibido"

This Sunday, In Sao Paulo, I had the pleasure to see the work of Louise Bourgeois in Instituto Tomie Ohtake, that will be exhibiting until August 28th. "The return of the prohibited desire" would be the exact translation. 

I went, without doing my research, and not knowing much about what I would see. I knew about the "Maman", her huge spider sculpture, but that was about it.

"I have been to Hell and back and let me tell you it was wonderful."

Her Story:

Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris, December 25th (Capricorn), 1911. She had a big childhood trauma: discovering her English governess and nanny was also her father's mistress. Eventually, all her traumas and tensions triggered her creative impulse. 

Bourgeois' parents owned a gallery that dealt with tapestries, and she would fill in designs that would become worn. She studied math & geometry at the Sorbonne (used to be the University of Paris), but when her mother died in 1932, she abandoned math to study art. 

Her father, whom she'd always disliked since the incident with her nanny, obviously didn't support her decision. She said he would always tease her, dominate the household and he had an explosive temper. 

She would write all her memories in her diary, since she was a little girl. The Ecole de Beaux-Arts was Bourgeois' next school, and she turned to her father's infidelities for inspiration. 

"Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said."

Bourgeois opened a print shop next to her father's tapestry shop/gallery, where her soon-to-be husband, Robert Goldwater [art historian], one day came in asking for a print of Pablo Picasso. She soon got married and went to New York City. She could not conceive, so she adopted her first child, but soon gave birth to her other two children. 

"I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands."

Profession: Fine Artist/Feminist

Influences: Surrealism, primitivism, and modernism

(Alberto Giacometti, Constantin Brancusi)

Work: Abstract, symbolic, autobiographical

Themes: 

1. Childhood trauma & hidden emotions (anxiety and loneliness)

2. Architecture & memory (betrayal)

3. Sexuality & fragility (women, and human figures)

"Once I was beset by anxiety but I pushed the fear away by studying the sky, determining when the moon would come out and where the sun would appear in the morning."

"Art is manipulation without intervention."

Cells.

"Bourgeois stated that the Cells represent “different types of pain; physical, emotional and psychological, mental and intellectual… Each Cell deals with a fear. Fear is pain… Each Cell deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at.”

During the 50's she made the transition from would and other upright structures to marble, plaster and bronze. 

In 1982, she received her 1st retrospective at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). 

In 2010, she used her art to speak up for the LGBT equality, and soon died in New York City. She finished all her work one week before her death.

Death: Heart failure.

Maman

::: The exhibition I saw was beautiful, her art expresses her feelings and transmits it to the audience. I felt her anxiety, her claustrophobia, and her hatred towards her father. 

This woman was beautiful and fragile, and her art work had to be huge, involving whoever wants to be in it (literally). 

My favorite quote from her:

"CLAUSTROPHOBIA AND OMNIPOTENCE

I WANT THEREFORE I CAN

I CAN BUT I'M AFRAID

I'M AFRAID THEREFORE I LIVE."

Richard Serra, the Steel man

Richard Serra was born on November 2nd, 1939 (will be 72 soon), in San Francisco. He is a minimalist sculptor and video artist. His work is large and normally made of steel metal (metal formed into thin and flat pieces).

Serra studied English Literature in the University of California, in Berkley, and helped support himself by working on steel mills, which became a strong influence for his work. He then studied Painting at Yale University and continued his training abroad..  He lived in Paris, Florence, Rome - and since then has been living between Tribeca, New York City and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Sculptures:

Serra's first sculptures were made out of non traditional materials such as fiber, glass and rubber - very abstract. (Circa 1966).

In 1981, "Tilted Arc", 3.5 meter high arc of rusting mild steel in the Federal Plaza in NY. In 1985, a public hearing voted that the work should be removed and Serra replied with "To remove the work is to destroy it", but there was no turning back.

Serra made a lot of films concerning his favorite material, the steel.

Hand Catching Lead (1968)

:: Serra's first film, a single shot of a hand in an attempt to repeatedly catch chunks of lead dropped from the top of the frame. 

Boomerang (1974)

:: Serra taped Nancy Holt as she talks and hears her words played back to her after they have been delayed electronically.

Serra also drawed and painted, using various techniques. I believe some of his drawings are currently being displayed at the MoMA and at the Dia Art Foundation, and I'm looking forward in checking it out tomorrow!

The Art Market:

The record auction price for a Serra sculpture was paid at Sotheby's in NY in 2008, a work consisting of 3 steel plates, sold for $1.65 million!

"When I first started, what was very very important to me was dealing with the nature of process."

* Serra has been acclaimed for his challenging and innovative work, which highlights the process of its fabrication, the qualities of its materials, and the engagement with the audience. Viewers were encouraged to move around, through, under, so they could meet different perspectives of its physicality and to create awareness of its size.

"Steel becomes something other than Steel."

"Work out on your work, don't work out on anybody else's work."

A friend of mine saw Serra yesterday at Strand Book Store. Maybe I should shop there more often! Can't wait to see his work, live.