Poster of the exhibition Louise Bourgeois in Florence
In the Canvas by Beatrice Brandini
One of the most important protagonists of 20th and 21st century art, Louise Bourgeois, will be celebrated in Florence with two exceptional exhibitions: Do Not Abandon me and Cell XVIII (Portrait) at the Museo Novecento and the Museo degli Innocenti, from 22 June to October 20, 2024.
Louise Bourgeois Pregnant Woman, 2008
The Louise Bourgeois in Florence project organized and coordinated by the Museo Novecento brings to the city an artist who, much more than others, has investigated the complex dynamics of the human psyche.
Louise Bourgeois Umbilical Cord, 2003
A childhood, that of the artist, marked by a complicated relationship with her family and by traumas that influenced her profoundly, Bourgeois often stated that the creative process was a form of exorcism, a way to reconstruct memories and emotions in order to free themselves from themselves.
Louise Bourgeois The Feeding, 2007
Louise Bourgeois (Paris 1911 – New York 2010) investigates universal emotions such as loneliness, jealousy, anger and fear, common threads and autobiographical elements of her work, often exorcised and transformed into metaphors.
The Do No abandon Me exhibition, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith and Sergio Risaliti in collaboration with The Easton Foundation, was conceived and structured in close dialogue with the architecture of the Ex Leopoldine, a complex managed for centuries by an all-female community. The title of the exhibition refers to the artist’s greatest fear, that of abandonment, a fear that arises since childhood, from the complicated double relationship between mother and child.
Louise Bourgeois CELL XVIII (PORTRAIT), 2000
Red is one of Bourgeois’s favorite colors, used recurrently in her work, reminiscent of body fluids such as blood and amniotic fluid. Just as the spider that represents the symbol of the maternal figure for the artist can be read in a positive key, that is, as an intelligent element, which works to protect the little ones by providing them with food and a home (the spider’s web), but also as a threatening and disturbing presence, something we are afraid of.
Louise Bourgeois Spider 2000
More than one hundred works by the artist on display, including many on paper, including gouche and drawings, as well as sculptures of various sizes and various materials, such as fabric, bronze, marble, etc. Much awaited and certainly among the most photographed things, Spider Couple from 2003, one of Bourgeois’ most famous and emblematic creations, which was installed in the courtyard of the Museum.
Two beautiful images of spider web dresses. On the right photo by Horst P. Horst
The Museo del Novecento turns ten, an exhibition center that has never stopped. In this period of time he has tried, with constant ferocity (in the highest and most positive value of this word), to spread a modern and contemporary language in our beautiful Florence. A city often too focused on itself (blessed by the glories of the past) just like a beautiful woman who is little aware of the appearance she was lucky enough to have, but which with the passing of time, she will inevitably have to review, dedicating a moment to it greater attention.
Louise Bourgeois
Good life to everyone!
Beatrice