Louise Bourgeois

Cheim & Read, New York
Galeria Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Malaga, CMC Museum, 2008-2011, on temporary loan

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the fabric of the figure is warmer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon close inspection, there are a few light surface scratches and specks of media accretion to the metal base. There are very light rub marks to the figure and extremely light wear to the leather. There is a small faint media spot to the centre of the figure's chest.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

During the seven decades of her working life, Louise Bourgeois' astounding versatility, range and complexity has continually located her art at the forefront of contemporary artistic dialogue as one of contemporary art's most fascinating and important voices. Inextricably intertwining her extraordinary ability for artistic expression with personal experience, Bourgeois not only makes manifest, her own deep routed daemons, but also delicately taps into the universal subconscious and the collective feeling of desire, fear and anxiety, creating powerful works of psychological intensity that hover between the figuration, abstraction, Surrealism and Postminimalism.  

The human form has been a central theme throughout Bourgeois' oeuvre as a way through which to express her traumatic experience of childhood and the effect of her father's long-running and open affair with her nanny. In Geometry and Youth, the dismembered, three dimensional form bristles with tension, creating an immediate sense of unease that is as mesmerising as it is unsettling. Reaffirming the title's suggestion of the challenges of adolescence, the artist's omission of bodily parts in her construction of the human figure, points to the mutability of gender that exists during this period sexual awakening. The resulting recognition of and revulsion towards the dehumanized and incomplete body creates a sense of strained anxiety in the viewer, heightened by the figures entrapment within the glass bell jar and the resulting fixing of time and impossibility of evolution beyond its current vulnerable state of incompletion.

The marriage between style, medium and subject matter is of paramount importance to Bourgeois, and nowhere is it more clearly evident than in her fabric works.  Growing up surrounded by textiles in her parents tapestry restoration work shop, the act of sewing became an intensely personal one for the artist, and a process she directly associates with attempting towards psychological repair; sewing to keep things together and whole. "When I was growing up, all the women in my house were using needles. I have always had a fascination with the needle, the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair the damage. It's a claim to forgiveness." (Louise Bourgeois in: Cristin Leech, Art getting to the point, The Sunday Times, December 21 2003). In this work as in her other fabric works that are stitched, stuffed and manipulated into shape, the seams are always visible, provocatively present and threatening fissure.  In many ways, Bourgeois fabric pieces bring they artist's work and life full circle; her trauma and creative abilities first pronounces during childhood re-harnessed in an effort towards closure.