As part of the exhibition Louise Bourgeois. Structures of Existence: The Cells, Garage is launching a new form of guided tour, where a contemporary practitioner will discuss their personal views on the artist or artists currently on show in the Museum. The first Artist-on-Artist guided tour will feature the artist Irina Nakhova, who will reflect upon selected works by Louise Bourgeois featured in the exhibition.
As part of the exhibition Louise Bourgeois. Structures of Existence: The Cells, Garage is launching a new form of guided tour, where a contemporary practitioner will discuss their personal views on the artist or artists currently on show in the Museum. The first Artist-on-Artist guided tour will feature the artist Irina Nakhova, who will reflect upon selected works by Louise Bourgeois featured in the exhibition.
“The identity of the creator of the Cells combines that of a prison guard, who occupies an external position, and that of a hostage shut inside. In our case, the imprisoned are the uncontrollable childhood fears, pain, and trauma that have not resolved with time. The artist willfully places these into the straightjacket of the Cell, entailing temporary relief, but only for the duration of this act of self-detention.
The installations of Louise Bourgeois look like junkyards full of symbols from some medieval psychoanalysis, where instruments of torture and pleasure are the same and can both hurt and deliver sexual excitement. The explicit physicality of many of the Cells brings to mind a butcher’s shop or a slaughterhouse. In their interior design, Bourgeois exploits common clichés: balls, hooks, jars, sex organs, mirrors, and other archetypes of the collective unconscious equally affect an inexperienced viewer and an art connoisseur, allowing the artist to extract her nightmares and relocate them to the subjectivity of the Other (the spectator). The recurring questions remain unchanged throughout her practice: is the artist the victim? Or the executioner? Or merely a passive witness?
When I look at a photo of Louise from 2009, I see a happy child on her way back to the warm bed of non-being.”
Irina Nakhova, New Jersey, June 2015
