LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction

Techniques:

Lithography, Other

Description:

Multiple of printed and hand-colored paper, handtorn, pierced, and sewn with thread

Support:

Smooth, wove Lana Gravure and Arches paper

Dimensions:

composition: 10 x 8 1/16" (25.4 x 20.5 cm); page: 9 13/16 x 8 1/16" (25 x 20.5 cm)

Signature:

"Louise Bourgeois" left lower comp., pencil.

Publisher:

Parkett Publishers, Zürich and New York

Printer:

SOLO Impression, New York

Edition:

75; plus 20 A.P.; several H.C.

Impression:

"AP XVIII" left lower comp., pencil, unknown hand.

Edition Information:

There are 2 known variant impressions of the only state, outside the edition. Both are on larger sheets and are not bound in the journal. One can be seen in the Evolving Composition Diagram below.

Benefit Work:

For Parkett Publishers, Zürich and New York

Background:

"Parkett" magazine approached Bourgeois with the suggestion of featuring her, with the artist Robert Gober, in one of its issues. This project was to be a part of a series in which artists were paired, each being represented by a selection of reproductions and articles, as well as by a multiple work, which would be reproduced in the pages of the magazine and also available in a signed and limited special edition. In Bourgeois's case, the special edition consisted of the multiple bound in, in place of the reproduction. A regular edition of the magazine included the reproduction bound in. Other works considered by Bourgeois for this project are listed and can be seen below in Related Works in the Catalogue:
"The Age of Condom Come"
"Appointment at 11:00 am"
"Fabrication I"

Bourgeois asked SOLO Impression, New York to help produce the edition. Solodkin printed the paper yellow to match the source, while the blue paper was hand-colored after it was torn. Her colleague Rebecca Lax used templates to match the tears, piercings, and stitches of the original.

A description of the multiple is on the opposite page and is transcribed below:
Edition for Parkett
Louise Bourgeois

REPARATION, 1991. A fabrication made of paper and sewn with thread. The backing sheet is Lana Gravure paper and was printed on both sides with a cream color. A hole was torn in its center by hand. Using a template, two separate shapes were torn from Arches paper by hand, and hand colored with blue acrylic paint. These were then sewn together with blue thread. Another template was made to punch sewing holes through the blue shapes and the backing sheets. The shapes were then sewn to the backing sheet with black thread.

Fabricated by Rebecca Lax, Solo Press New York.
Edition of 75, initialled and numbered, bound in the magazine.

The artist did several collaborations with Parkett over the years. In 1999, plate 8 of 9, from Bourgeois's illustrated book, "Ode à Ma Mère" was reproduced across the spines of issues nos. 55, 56, and 57. In 2008, the artist contributed an edition called "The Maternal Man" for issue no. 82. Both these works can be seen in Related Works in the Catalogue below.

Artist’s Remarks:

"Sewing implies repairing. There is a hole... you have to hide the damage... you have to hide the urge to do damage. There is a background of drama here... that something bad you have done must be undone. I sew... I do what I can. This goes back to my mother... she repaired things... she repaired everything. But there is a limit to that. When you mend things, it allows you to have your hands occupied, to look intensely, and never meet the eyes of other people. You can even be moral about it... you can appear to do things for others... you can say, 'I am repairing your clothes.'"

Of the color of the patch she said: "The softness of the blue represents hope." (Quotes cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois." New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 161)

Curatorial Remarks:

In Wye and Smith, "The Prints of Louise Bourgeois," 1994, p. 161, it states that the paper is printed blue by lithography, when in fact it was hand colored with acrylic paint after it was torn.

Former Cat. No.:

W & S 90

MoMA Credit Line:

Gift of the artist

MoMA Accession Number:

308.1994

This Work in Other Collections:

Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library
Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY