Louise Bourgeois: Her Love of the Spider

The eminently provocative and intriguing work of Louise Bourgeois spanned two centuries. Her work; largely sculptural, often spoke to her love of the fabric/textile world. French born; she came from a family of individuals that made art and tapestries their business. The very essence of her being was tied to the creative activity of restoring and the selling of antique tapestries. It is no accident that she also connected to nature’s most prolific weaver; the spider. Her affinity for the spider was expressed over and over within her body of works. This abundantly evident throughout her life as she tireless worked through the decades. She would even acquire the nick-name “Spider-Woman.”    

The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.

                                                                                                       Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois’ father too affected her throughout her life emotionally and creatively in that he was harsh, overly critical and had multiple affairs with women. Bourgeois’ nanny was included in the number of his continuing infidelities. Louise was greatly affected and really never forgave her father. She would go on in life and replaced any misgivings with education, work and a desire for self-exanimation and curiosity. These models would encouragement and inform her for her life’s entirety. 

Once I was beset by anxiety but I pushed the fear away by studying the sky, determining when the moon would come out and where the sun would appear in the morning.

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                        Louise Bourgeois

After marrying and moving to New York City she would continue as both teacher and student at the university level and even in public schools, Bourgeois was a force. Her salons at her home in Chelsea (Manhattan) would take on the name “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” because of her scathing and brutally honest critics that often expressed her dry, biting wit.  Friend and associate to many of her famous peers including Dekooning, Pollack and Ferdinand Léger (who informed her early on that she was a sculptor; not a painter.) She would be late acquiring wide success possibly due to gender. Her work could be construed as feminist and even surreal but she rejected all labels as she worked to express her emotions, memories and muses.

“My work deals with problems that are pre-gender...for example, jealousy is not male or female."

                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                          Louise Bourgeois

It was MoMA that would be the first museum to give Louise Bourgeois a retrospective in 1982. Other retrospectives would follow world-wide including Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage and London’s Tate Modern. Washington DC’s foremost museum of modern art The Hirshhorn would exhibit a Bourgeois retrospective in 2009. I was able to attend it several times and enjoyed passing her huge “Crouching Spider” at the museum’s entrance. The Hirshhorn retrospective was extremely inclusive boasting 120 pieces and showcased her every style and medium; plaster, bronze, marble, wood, resin, latex and found objects. Bourgeois was talented, intelligent, caring, thoughtful and beautiful in every aspect of her being. Her art is her testament to life.

It is not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                            Louise Bourgeois

Picasso Sculpture @ MoMA

When the “New” Whitney opened earlier this year in Lower Manhattan (NYC) it became the most talked about museum among the many celebrated museums in the city. It was dimming the luster in particular of one of the New York greats; MoMA. I had wondered what the folks at MoMA would do to return the talk and the buzz as the leader in Modern and Contemporary Art. “Picasso Sculpture” featuring 100 pieces opens there Monday. It seems to be their response to the Whitney and promises to be a Block Buster.

The exhibition will feature many of the 20^th Century master’s best efforts. Picasso is noted as quite possibly the most innovative and prolific genius of all time. His sculpture attests extravagantly to his fame and ability. Picasso’s choices of materials range from bronze to plaster to cardboard. Found objects and assemblage rate highly among his sculptural works. The hand and mind of Picasso, always exciting, always exuberant on full display here should charm and delight every eye to behold each brilliant object.  The man is as strong a sculptural presence as any of his sculptor contemporaries, including Moore, Brancusi, Calder and Duchamp.

We are edging further into the 21^st century and there are no shortages of new artists on the contemporary scene. At every level Picasso continues to rank highly. There is a definitive, ageless quality to his works. I am including an extensive portfolio of the Picasso Sculptures and yes; I hope to visit them and MoMA soon.

Hearts of De Milo with Drawings Pinocchio / Jim Dine

Among the most prolific, distinguished and knowledgeable, plus one of the last of a breed of artist that is true to the hand and eye all are Jim Dine. He is one of the original artists to be exhibited under the moniker; “Pop.” Dine continues to work and explore the limitless realm of possibilities. Like his “Pop” peers he chose to and works largely from established cultural icons. Dine’s work includes the Venus De Milo, valentine hearts and the ubiquitously lively marionette Pinocchio. Other favorites among his subjects are every day bath-robes, common tools and further stepping outside of the “Pop” restraints; figurative studies. Paintings, sculpture, charcoals and prints exist within his mastery of mediums and forms. Dine is literally the “King of Hearts” in an ever increasing world of soulless and mindless artists / creators.    

Dine is included in collections across the globe; the British Museum (London), the Hirshhorn (Wash. DC), The Met (NYC), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris) and both MoMA (NYC) and San Francisco MOMA.  He is much sought after by collectors world-wide and especially in Miami Beach. I learned this early last December at Art Miami where I was seeing an unusually large number of his works exhibited. I asked Susan Dishell an LA based gallerist in conversation about the abundance of Jim Dine works on view; this while admiring one of her Dine Hearts. Susan said “Dine’s use of color vibrancy and his painterly technique are a great fit with the character of the Miami collector.”  It made perfect sense as we stood before the painting she said was created especially for this most recent Art Miami fair.

                                                                                                 

Dine talks  Dine

I’m a longtime fan of Dine’s dating back a number of years and greatly admire his atmospheric, richly textured and the vaguely unfinished quality in his works. The Dine Pinocchio drawings are a hallmark of his many tools and skills. His illustrated edition of the classic Carlo Collodi tale is fabulous. Being true to his “Pop” roots the Dine works are a definite nod to the Walt Disney studios’ interpretation. While he reflects the Disney esthetic; he goes beyond the Disney cartoonist’s visions to a place of artistry, beauty and intrigue within his most effective efforts. 

The former teacher and heroic Jim Dine’s continuous outpouring of spirit and craft are things of truth and beauty. Dine is to be celebrated, revered and many times over admired. His ever expansive body of work enlivens and inspires ever increasingly as it exists and surely grows for our own fulfillment.

The Enigmatic Vivian Maier

Street photographer; sometimes nanny, Vivian Maier is still not a house-hold name. She remains largely, someone reclusive and unknown to this day. This is changing. Describing herself as a spy and leading a life of secrecy, often entered into shadowy places of full sunlight, discovering and uncovering many stories of the unseen or at least the unnoticed with her camera.  

Maier was brilliant in her efforts, the truest and purest artist in the noblest sense. She remained largely among the unknown and unsung. Maier’s work; just short of genius or surpassing genius depending on the viewer’s interpretation is certainly among the most alluring creators the world of photography is yet to know. The Maier self-portraits are in a league with Cindy Sherman’s; her cunning portraits of children surely equaling those of Sally Mann. And we are still in the process of her discovery.

It was real estate agent John Maloof that discovered the incredible talent and body of work by the completely unknown artist. His lucky, chancy finding happened while Maloof; researching for a book, purchased the contents of an old storage locker. This would prove to be a true treasure for Maloof. Prints, negatives and rolls of undeveloped film were included among the unsorted materials. Maier; the undocumented, extraordinary talent was suddenly found! Maloof began a personal investigation into the maker of this sensational photographic archive. Others have since joined Maloof in his quest to uncover the mystery of the nanny/photographer. Michael Williams and Pamela Bannos too, are working, investigating, and compiling their research on Maier as they put together books and films on the life and works of Vivian Maier. A clearer picture of Maier is coming together from the many individual efforts.

While Maier worked as a nanny she was considered something of a “Mary Poppins” to her children.  They adored her and loved the numerous outings and adventures around New York and Chicago. Vivian always carried her camera and amassed something better than 100,000 images; many that she never printed or even developed. Her camera of choice was a Rolleiflex twin lens reflex that evidence shows she began to use after seeing a documentary on great French Photographers of the early 20^th Century at MoMA. 

Maier recorded her imagery with precision, grace and care. Her photographs are incredibly and generously democratic. Men, women, children, every national origin and station of life depicted honestly with skill, nuance and subtle beauty. For reasons all her own Maier never sought fame or to be paid as a professional. She possesses all the qualities of the great and professional as the work itself most eloquently speaks. Her anonymity remained intact throughout her life. There are creative comparisons to be made to the painter Vincent Van Gogh in their continued devotion to life, art and the expressions of the human spirit. Vincent however did seek and want to support himself financially at least to some degree as is evident in his letters to his brother, Theo. Nothing at this point has surfaced on Maier to suggest she sought either wealth or fame. We are honestly just beginning to write the book of Vivian Maier and may find something to the contrary. Her life remains firmly open ended and without any true definition. When all is said it is really about the work and the process. Maier loved photography, the doing of the thing and her subjects as the sheer volume and quality of her results illustrate.    

Life, death, legacy and purpose were things considered by Maier.  At one point Vivian Maier reflected on an audio tape in this way:

  "Well I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel; you get on, you have to go in the end and then somebody has the same opportunity to go on to the end…and so on and somebody else takes their place.” 

                                                                                                         Vivian Maier

Miss Maier; as is said she liked to be addressed, made a mark on her time and her world. This literally as she saw, experienced and recorded it. She walked the streets of the city along with her children in tow, in search of mystery, adventure and treasures. What was once their secret is now ours to share, to study, to enjoy, proclaiming with raucous exuberance and “right out loud!”