Bourgeois took advantage of digital printing for the ease of printing on fabric. She employed it here to create her own interpretation of a traditional book of hours, the medieval volumes with prayers to be read at certain times of the day. Bourgeois provides her own texts, as the hour on the clock changes from page to page. She was in her mid-nineties when this book was made; clocks and the passage of time were subjects of a number of works in this period.
Gallery label from Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait, Sept. 24, 2017-Jan. 28, 2018.
No. 11 of 24
What did you do for twenty years?
You have wasted your time
The woman who has lost her life
She has cooked, housecleaned, sewn
washed, done the stairs, the windows,
the floors, the fish and the soup
Publication excerpt from Louise Bourgeois, Hours of the Day, New York: Carolina Nitsch Editions and Lison Editions, 2006.