Louise Bourgeois: The Cells

Over her long career as an artist, Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) developed concepts and formal inventions that later became key positions in contemporary art; these included the use of environmental installation and theatrical formats, and the engagement with psychoanalytic and feminist themes.

Among the most innovative and sophisticated sculptural works in her extensive oeuvre are the Cells, a series of architectural spaces that deal with a range of emotions. Created over a span of two decades, the Cell series presents individual microcosms: each Cell is an enclosure that separates the internal world from the external world. In these unique spaces, the artist composes found objects, clothes, fabric, furniture and distinctive sculptures into emotionally charged, theatrical sets.

If one includes the five precursor works to the Cells that first emerged in 1986 with Articulated Lair, Louise Bourgeois created a total of 60 Cells over the course of her career. Two of these precursors and 30 Cells are presented in Haus der Kunst. The exhibition, planned and organized by Haus der Kunst in
collaboration with international partner institutions, is the largest overview presentation of this body of work to date.

Cells I to VI, first shown in 1991 at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, are reunited in the Haus der Kunst’s installation for the first time. The term “Cell” originated during the preparations for the Carnegie exhibition. For Bourgeois, the term had many connotations, referencing both the biological cell of a living organism and the isolation of a prison or monastic cell. Three years later, in 1994, the artist created her first spider sculpture. Although Louise Bourgeois was already over 80 years old at the time, she succeeded, once again, in reinventing her working methods. The artist then created some of her greatest works, aided by the acquisition in 1980 of her first large studio. Before this she had worked in a townhouse in Chelsea, where the width of the rooms, barely more than four meters, determined for the most part the dimensions of her sculptures. Her new studio in Brooklyn paved the way for large-scale works.

The Brooklyn studio also provided Louise Bourgeois with a wealth of new raw materials. Objects from the surrounding neighborhood and from the artist’s private life are integrated into Cells: steel shelves from a sewing factory (Articulated Lair, 1986), a water tank taken from the roof (Precious Liquids, 1992). When she finally had to vacate the Brooklyn studio in 2005, she kept and later incorporated its spiral staircase into one of her last Cells (Cell [The Last Climb], 2008).

The entire Cell series revolves around the desire to simultaneously remember and forget. “You have to tell your story and you have to forget your story. You forget and forgive. It liberates you,” Louise Bourgeois once claimed. She has described her sculptures from the mid–1940s to the mid–1950s as an attempt to summon together all the people she missed. The Cells also contain references to individuals and past experiences. Thus, the needles, thread and spindles incorporated in the Cells allude to the artist’s childhood and her parents’ work – her mother restored valuable tapestries. The Cells also tell of abandonment, betrayal and loss.

February 27 – August 2, 2015
opening Thursday, February 26, 2015, 7 pm
Louise Bourgeois
Structures of Existence: The Cells
curated by Julienne Lorz
Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1, München