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拍品专文
Suspended above the earth, two shimmering silver figures reach towards one another, their bodies an embrace of spirals and limbs. Louise Bourgeois’ The Couple (2002) was created in the final decade of the artist’s life, and has been held in the same private collection since 2003. Its abstracted duo hang in close proximity yet have not fully merged their beings. Both genderless, as are so many of Bourgeois’ biomorphic sculptures, their ambiguous arrangement conveys an emotional and physical connection. Intimate in scale, the sculpture’s gleaming surface reflects its environs and entwines the viewer in its sensual, beguiling grasp. A variation of this work is displayed in Ekebergparken Sculpture Park in Oslo alongside sculptures by artists including Salvador Dalí, Auguste Rodin, Niki de Saint Phalle, and James Turrell.
Bourgeois initially studied mathematics at the Sorbonne but changed her focus to art at the age of twenty-five. Her early output featured Surrealist paintings and engravings, and in the late 1940s she began to experiment with sculpture. ‘I became a sculptor,’ she explained, ‘because it allowed me to express—this is terribly, terribly important—allowed me to express what I was embarrassed to express before’ (quoted in J. Acocella, ‘The Spider’s Web’, The New Yorker, 28 January 2002). Bourgeois’ work often dealt with past traumas, which she explored using various, recurrent motifs. Her interest in spirals, the predominant form in The Couple, dates from her youth, when she worked at her family’s tapestry workshop in Aubusson: ‘As a child, after washing tapestries in the river, I would turn and twist and ring them ... Later I would dream of my father’s mistress. I would do it in my dreams by wringing her neck. The spiral—I love the spiral—represents control and freedom’ (quoted in P. Gardner, Louise Bourgeois, New York, 1994, p. 68).
While The Couple itself was conceived late in Bourgeois’ career, the theme had appeared in her oeuvre as early as the 1940s in works such as Knife Couple (1949, Tate, London). It was not until several decades later, however, that she began to more fully develop the motif. Her depictions of couples, be they cast, drawn, sewn, or printed, are ultimately manifestations of intimacy. But if her earlier works attended to past sufferings, Bourgeois’ later representations offer more restorative and hopeful imagery. Suspended from a single wire, the figures in The Couple hang together for eternity, refusing to be parted.
Bourgeois initially studied mathematics at the Sorbonne but changed her focus to art at the age of twenty-five. Her early output featured Surrealist paintings and engravings, and in the late 1940s she began to experiment with sculpture. ‘I became a sculptor,’ she explained, ‘because it allowed me to express—this is terribly, terribly important—allowed me to express what I was embarrassed to express before’ (quoted in J. Acocella, ‘The Spider’s Web’, The New Yorker, 28 January 2002). Bourgeois’ work often dealt with past traumas, which she explored using various, recurrent motifs. Her interest in spirals, the predominant form in The Couple, dates from her youth, when she worked at her family’s tapestry workshop in Aubusson: ‘As a child, after washing tapestries in the river, I would turn and twist and ring them ... Later I would dream of my father’s mistress. I would do it in my dreams by wringing her neck. The spiral—I love the spiral—represents control and freedom’ (quoted in P. Gardner, Louise Bourgeois, New York, 1994, p. 68).
While The Couple itself was conceived late in Bourgeois’ career, the theme had appeared in her oeuvre as early as the 1940s in works such as Knife Couple (1949, Tate, London). It was not until several decades later, however, that she began to more fully develop the motif. Her depictions of couples, be they cast, drawn, sewn, or printed, are ultimately manifestations of intimacy. But if her earlier works attended to past sufferings, Bourgeois’ later representations offer more restorative and hopeful imagery. Suspended from a single wire, the figures in The Couple hang together for eternity, refusing to be parted.