Louise Bourgeois, double date in Florence

FLORENCE – Two exceptional exhibitions dedicated to the figure of Louise Bourgeoisabsolute protagonist of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries, enliven Florence from 22 June to 20 October 2024.

Louise Bourgeois in Florence

For the first time, the works of Louise Bourgeois (Paris, 1911 – New York, 2010) arrive in Florence, creating a significant relationship of osmosis between her creations and the exhibition context.

At the Museo Novecento the exposure Don’t Abandon Me, edited by Philip Larratt-Smith and Sergio Risaliti in collaboration with The Easton Foundation, presents almost one hundred works by the artist, including gouaches on paper, drawings, sculptures and installations. A particular focus will be dedicated to mother and child theme, explored by Bourgeois through powerful and evocative images. Among the works on display in the Museum Cloister, it stands out Spider Coupleone of the artist’s most celebrated creations: a mother-spider weaving her web in an act of creation that is both protective and disturbing.

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin

A collaboration of great interest presented in the exhibition is that between Louise Bourgeois and the British artist Tracey Emin (Margate, 1963). Together they created the series Don’t Abandon Me (2009-10), composed by sixteen digital prints on fabric, which are exhibited for the first time. This series represents an artistic dialogue between the two women, expressing empathy and tension through very powerful visual compositions.

The exhibition at the Museo Novecento is enriched by other significant installations such as Peaux de Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles à Vendre (2006), one of the artist’s cells presented in a room on the ground floor of the museum, e Crosses (2002). The latter exhibited in the former church of the Ex Leopoldine complex, evokes the historical segregation of women during religious rites, with a strong symbolic impact.

“From now – he claims Sergio Risaliti, Director of the Museo Novecento – we leave talk about the hundred works of Louise Bourgeois, one of the greatest artists of all time, since it would be simplistic to confine her to the horizon of twentieth-century art. Bourgeois crossed the major movements and currents of the last century, managing to free Surrealism from the male unconscious, Informalism from existentialist machismo, Abstractionism from ideologies and decorativism. With her, the desiring machines that Deleuze and Guattari spoke to us about take shape, that is, the desiring bodies, the drives, the primary and elementary needs of being in the world, without distinctions and alternatives because there is no alternative to being “expelled ” in the world of life and death. These are the reasons why Bourgeois’ works speak to the entire public and leave no one out. The museum, like few other times, becomes that place where one experiences being in the world“.

Dialogue with the history of the Museo degli Innocenti

The exhibition project also extends to Museum of the Innocents with Cell XVIII (Portrait) (2000). Despite belonging to the same cycle as Peaux de Lapins, the subject enclosed in Cell XVIII seems to reinterpret the iconography of Our Lady of Mercy, underlining the mission of welcome and protection carried out by the institution over the centuries.

The two exhibitions, although presenting different works, are intertwined in one profound dialogue that highlights the complexity and richness of Louise Bourgeois’ art. The Ex Leopoldine, with their strong social past, and the Museo degli Innocenti, with its vocation for assistance, are an ideal context to enhance the artist’s works and to stimulate new readings.

“The Museo degli Innocenti is honored and proud to host a work by Louise Bourgeois as part of the project organized by the Museo Novecento – declares Arabella S. Natalini Scientific Director of the Museum of the Innocents – and not only because the artist is undoubtedly one of the greatest exponents of the international artistic panorama of the last century, but, above all, for the strong resonance between his work and the history of our institution”.

Louise Bourgeois in aother Italian cities

During the exhibition period Louise Bourgeois in Florenceother three exhibitions dedicated to the artist will be held in various Italian cities. There Borghese Gallery in Rome will host The unconscious of memory from 21 June to 15 September, while a Villa Doctors the exhibition will be held No Exit. Naples will pay homage to Bourgeois with Rare Language at the Trisorio Galleryopen to visitors from 25 June to 28 September.

The artistic roots of Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois was a central figure in 20th century art. Raised on the outskirts of Paris in a family of tapestry restorers, she transformed her traumatic experiences into an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her art.

His work, profoundly autobiographical, explores universal themes such as love, loss, fear and desire. Her world, made of emotional intensity and obsessions, draws inspiration from the unconscious, trying to express the unspeakable. Bourgeois thus opens up to a poetics of the uncanny, capable of exorcising traumas and inhibitions. Through a visual vocabulary of formal and symbolic equivalents, he gave voice to his experiences by creating works that continue to excite and move us today.

“Louise Bourgeois’s art arouses profound and often conflicting feelings – points out Stefania Rispoli, Curator of the Museo Novecento – ranging from contemplation to disturbance, almost to anguish in some cases. Feelings and emotions such as loneliness, jealousy, anger and fear are the underlying theme of many of his works, from drawings to sculptures and writings, and it is impossible to remain indifferent to their expressive power, which places us in front of ghosts and unconscious desires and, above all, it forces us to reconsider many of our social references and conditioning, such as those linked to motherhood, human relationships and the feminine”.

Vademecum

Twentieth Century Museum
Tel. +39 055 286132 / [email protected] Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, 10 – Florence
www.museonovecento.it

Hours:
Mon – Mar – Wed – Fri – Sat – Sun | 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
Thursdaythe | closed

Last entry one hour before closing

Museum of the Innocents

Tel. +39 055 2037122 / [email protected]

Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, 13, 50122 Florence FI

www.museodeglinnocenti.it

Hours:

The museum is open every day from 10:00 to 19:00