The fabric works.

I loved the 3 dimensionality, simplicity, and innovative use of sewing box materials

I made it over to Chelsea last Friday to check out the Louise Bourgeois exhibit before it comes down this Saturday. So you have a few days left to check it out. We barely made it there before the sky's opened and hailed. But all was well as we made it into the haven on the gallery and took our time looking at the inspiring work on the walls.

a strength of the work for me was the combination of fabrics from used cotton bed sheets to silk swatches.

This exhibit at Cheim and Read is a highly edited selection of LB's fiber works. The press release states:

Her works on fabric are emblematic of certain themes: marriage, motherhood, sexuality, femininity, domesticity. This focus on the familial results in work of intense psychological complexity, exposing relationships and hierarchies related to female identity and its opposite (male/female, mother/father, organic/geometric, rigid/pliable). Coinciding with an inclination, at old age, to stay closer to home, Bourgeois’s late fabric works provide a sense of introspection – her wardrobe and linen closet became representative of memory. As Bourgeois has stated, “Clothing is…an exercise of memory. It makes me explore the past…like little signposts in the search for the past.” The re-appropriation of her husband’s handkerchiefs, stained tablecloths and napkins, and worn dresses from all phases of her life infuses the work with a confessional, talismanic aura.

I enjoyed the installation especially of her web sewn works. One installation of more graphics works and simple palettes was hung salon style creating interesting relationships.

love.

The other series of webs, with pinks and blues as the dominant palette, were hung in a close together row. I like this installation too as you experienced much like a book. Taking in each piece individually but also in relationship to each other.

my favorite piece.

a detail shot of one of the vitrines on view.

You can see installation shots here and read the entire press release.
Go be inspired