In Oslo’s Slottsparken, a giant spider in bronze and stainless steel is currently towering. It is ten meters high and almost as wide, with thin, jointed legs, and with a belly full of white marble eggs. The giant sculpture was designed by the internationally renowned French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), and is part of a larger retrospective exhibition at the National Museum. EYE-CATCHING: The sculpture will hopefully inspire a visit to the exhibition. Louise Bourgeois is much more than these giant spiders, for which she has become so famous. This is on display in the Slottsparken in Oslo these days. TRIBUTE: The spider is a tribute to Louise Bourgeois’ mother. As the image of the good mother, the spider is the one who spins and weaves its protection around the offspring, but it also has a sinister side, as something that can trap, poison and consume you. Photo: Maximilian Geuter / The Easton The National Museum’s large, open light hall is currently transformed into an intimate gallery with small rooms in a row. Here, the whole of Louise Bourgeois’ diverse artistry unfolds, from her enigmatic, surreal paintings, strong, abstract sculptures, to fascinating and grotesque installations. UHYGGE: One of several strong works of despair you will find at the exhibition. Louise Bourgeois: “Untitled” (1946/47). Photo: Christopher Burke / The Easton Louise Bourgeois was an active artist on the American art scene right from the 1940s, but won recognition only towards the end of her life. In 1982, as the first female sculptor ever, she was the subject of a comprehensive retrospective exhibition at MOMA. At the Venice Biennale in 1999, her name was brought out to the entire global art world. DISCOVERED LATE: The French-American artist Louise Bourgeois opened her first exhibition in 1945, but only had her international breakthrough in 1982. Photo: Philipp Hugues Bonan, The Easton Foundation, BONO Myth shrouded Louise Bourgeois is a rare myth shrouded artist. She is often considered an outsider who created her unique things detached from art history, and on the sidelines of contemporary art life. She is often referred to as a trauma artist and her works are consistently interpreted in the light of her biography. With “Imaginary Conversations”, the National Museum wants to break with this one-sided, and partly erroneous, focus. Here they create a comprehensive chronological presentation of Bourgeois, where her many different groups of works are juxtaposed against older and contemporary artists. BODY: Through several interesting dialogues, we see Bourgeois’ deep interest in the body both as something beautiful and disgusting. She wanted to break with the notion of the woman as a doll or shiny marble sculpture. BOTH AND: Bourgeois is concerned with examining the beauty and ugliness of the body. Often the sculptures have her somewhat intrusively physical. Here, among other things, the link between a bone of meat and a penis. CONSTANT SUPERVISION: While a man can be hairy from head to toe, a woman must exfoliate, shave, groom away anything that reminds her that her body is a living, fluid organism. TO THE EARS: This cell installation is dedicated to the sense of hearing. Inside a cage, various textiles hang, such as clothes to dry, a spider on the wall and a strange shapeless white creature with long, hare-like ears. THE GROWN-UP PARTY? Maybe it’s about how the child listens to adults’ secretive conversations? The installation has a strong tension between the experience of a sheltered and protected reality, and something painful, confined and claustrophobic. The exhibition clearly shows us that Bourgeois was anything but an outsider. Basically, I have never personally resented the biographical reading of Bourgeois. Nevertheless, it was refreshing and liberating that instead of focusing on her mother’s illness and her father’s infidelity, her art is understood here in the light of modernism’s various avant-garde currents. CORRECTS THE IMPRESSION: That Louise Bourgeois stood in the middle of the flow of time, we see particularly clearly in her abstract sculptures from the 1940s and 1950s. Here we can see a clear kinship with modernist sculptors. Photo: Annar Bjørgli / The National Museum Transformation of the female body An exciting group of works that shows her link to the feminist tradition is the “Femme Maison” series. These are claustrophobic depictions of women’s bodies trapped in various forms of architecture. Here we can see how she draws inspiration from, among others, Picasso, who also created similar motifs of transformation. SNIFF AT SURREALISM: The early paintings and drawings in the series “Femme Maison” show how close Bourgeois was to the European avant-garde, not least surrealism. Louise Bourgeois “Femme maison”, 1946–1947. Photo: Christopher Burke / The Easton But where Picasso allowed the woman to become a bird or a flower, and in many ways maintained a patriarchal view of the female, there is more sting and ambivalence in Bourgeois. In her links of body and architecture, we see the woman under house arrest, as a slave of a household and a home: As a body that grows out of the interior and becomes one with furniture and wallpaper. But the house and its many rooms and different floors may also symbolize different moods: A dark attic or a cellar can be a picture of all that we have forgotten and repressed. RECOVERY: The Destruction of the Father is a shiny red installation where a table is filled with what looks like body fragments. It is an aesthetic and aggressive expression of rebellion against patriarchal culture. The idea here is a table where the father is simply devoured. Louise Bourgeois: “The Destruction of the Father” (1974-2017). Photo: Ron Amstutz / The Easton Kudos to the curators “Imaginary Conversations” is a beautiful and fascinating exhibition full of knowledge. Not only does it shed new and interesting light on a very important artistry, it also gives us a rich insight into a number of other art-historical and contemporary projects and currents – without losing sight of the protagonist. The exhibition is academically interesting without excluding the broad strata. Simply a brilliant piece of curatorial work! news reviews Photo: Annar Bjørgli / The National Museum Title: “Imaginary conversations” By: Louise Bourgeois Place: The National Museum Curated by: Andrea Kroksnes and Briony Fer. Date: 6 May-6 August 2023 Set aside minimum: 45 minutes
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Imaginary conversations” at the National Museum – Reviews and recommendations
