Louise Bourgeois

Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Montreal, Galerie Samuel Lallouz, Louise Bourgeois, 1996

Exhibition Catalogue, Monterrey, Mexico, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Escultura de Louise Bourgeois, La Elegancia de la Ironía, 1995, p. 69, no. 65, illustration of another example in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly deeper and richer in the original. The catalogue illustration fails to fully capture the three-dimensional nature of the sculpture. Condition: This work is in very good condition.
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Coinciding with Louise Bourgeois's major international retrospective, first unveiled at Tate Modern, London in 2007 and touring in 2008-09 to the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., the presence of this stunning work, Cove from 1988, offers a unique opportunity at auction.

 

Bourgeois's striking Cove embodies the polarities between anxiety and calm.  The round organic shapes and curving lines of the bronze create an overall sensation of fluidity yet emerging from the centre is a tangling medley of arms and forms struggling against each other evoking an inner tension.  The rich and lavish dark patina contrasts dramatically with the gleaming golden bronze, highlighting the circular protrusions.  Bourgeois achieves this duality in her sculpture by combining body and landscape.  Constantly preoccupied with relationships, the human form melds into her composition crafting a unified whole.  The title, Cove, refers to a curve in the landscape where boats find safe harbour.  The hands signify protection and guidance while the protuberances make reference to growth, body parts and the vulnerability of sexuality.  At once visually and psychologically charged, Cove addresses Bourgeois' core themes of femininity, sexuality and isolation in a context which defies convention and perpetually challenges her viewer. 

 

Bourgeois' long career has been dominated by her effort to penetrate the shell protecting her unconscious in order to unearth and ultimately confront some of the deeply repressed issues which conditioned her youth.  Working through most of the Twentieth Century's avant-garde artistic movements, from abstraction to realism, she has maintained a uniquely individual approach to her art and through her highly complex sculpture, has established herself as one of the greatest artistic innovators of this century.