This weekend I went to have a look at an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois on at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. It was a collection of sculptures and fabric drawings created in the last 15 years of Bourgeois' career and the first survey of her art in Australia since her death in 2010. Bourgeouis work is often described as autobiographical, with references to her childhood, her father's betrayal of her mother and other instances of trauma and pain. Viewing her fabric sculptures, I was struck by the varied ways the female body was rendered in fabric. As a shifting form, with amorphous curves, orifices, genitalia and sometimes violent intersections with other objects.
Femme Maison, 2001
Bourgeois skilled layering of fabric and use of the body was both poetic and startling. In this work, the house is grafted onto the woman, rather like a tumor or extra limb. There is humor, risk and abjection to her work.
Knife Figure, 2002
Couple, 1997
I love the way that Bourgeois' work invites the viewer to consider the experience of living within your body, the surfaces, textures, and orifices. The experience of violence, touch, interaction and penetration. And the way a body can be trapped in space, threatened or traumatized.
On until March 11th 2013
Heide Museum of Modern Art
7 Templestow Road
Bulleen VIC 3105
http://www.heide.com.au/
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