LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Words

Techniques:

Screenprint

Description:

Screenprint

Support:

Paper

Dimensions:

composition and sheet: 13 × 17" (33 × 43.2 cm)

Signature:

"LB" lower right comp., pencil.

Publisher:

The artist

Printer:

Dyenamix, New York

Edition:

30; plus 10 A.P., 8 P.P.

Impression:

"5/30" lower left comp., pencil, unknown hand.

Edition Information:

There are variations in the background of each impression in the edition caused by special inking of the screenprint matrix. The ink was applied with a squeegee to achieve the desired effect and allow for variety across the edition.

State Changes and Additions:

Matrices:
This composition involved 2 matrices.

Matrix 1, in shades of blue: background.

Matrix 2, in red: text.

Benefit Work:

For "The Damned, The Possessed, and The Beloved," Bourgeois's 2007-2010 sculpture commission for the Steilneset Memorial located in Vardø, Norway.

Background:

Bourgeois published "Have You Saved a Soul Today?" to benefit the sculpture "The Damned, the Possessed, and the Beloved" seen below in Related Works in Other Mediums. It is permanently installed inside a glass pavilion designed by the architect Peter Zumthor, alongside his elongated memorial building.

Within Zumthor's cuboid pavilion with blackened glass panels, Bourgeois's centrally placed flaming chair surrounded by a ring of seven oval mirrors, symbolizes the death of the Vardø witches during the seventeenth century witch trials. Each distorted mirror reflects the flames differently, symbolizing the various perceptions of reality that one person has of the behavior and values of another. The five flames in the chair also correspond to the five members of Bourgeois's family, both in her childhood and in her adult life. The fire represents both the sense of warmth and the destruction that can exist within family dynamics. A slight gap between the structure's glass panels and the ground makes the pavilion permeable to nature, allowing snow and wind to enter the space.

Curatorial Remarks:

The paper type could not be documented because this work is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person.

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY