Louise Bourgeois. Each Thing Has Its Place (2006)

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Louise Bourgeois. Each Thing Has Its Place. 2006

NOT IN MoMA'S COLLECTION

Cat. No. 823, unique variant 4

Each Thing Has Its Place

State/Variant:: Only state, unique variant
Date:: 2006

Alternate Title:: Up and Up
Themes:: Abstraction, Nature
Techniques:: Etching
Description:: panel (a): Soft ground etching, with watercolor, ink, gouache, colored pencil, and pencil additions
panel (b): Pencil
Support:: Paper
Dimensions:: plate: 55 3/16 × 9 13/16" (140.2 × 25 cm); sheet: 58 3/4 × 28 3/8" (149.2 × 72.1 cm)
Signature:: panel (b): "Louise Bourgeois" right lower sheet.
Inscription:: panel (b): "The organs of my body / are close together / and feel good. each thing has its place / my body hums" center sheet, pencil, artist's hand.
Publisher:: Osiris, New York
Printer:: Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH
Edition:: Unique
Impression:: Not numbered
Edition Information:: This is one of 10 unique variants that incorporate this plate, printed alone or in combination with other plates in multi-panel works. When the plate is printed alone, the work is included in the Evolving Composition Diagram. When it is printed with other plates, it is included in Related Works in the Catalogue.

Before settling on the 8 unique variants that use the "Up and Up" plate alone, Bourgeois first added hand additions to 7 impressions of the plate and called them "studies." (Usually in this catalogue, the term "study" describes photocopies and tracings that were used in the process of developing a composition.) She issued two studies as unique variant single panel works. She then combined 5 of these studies into one multi-panel unique variant titled "Up and Up."

She worked with this plate again to make 5 additional unique variants, separate from the initial 7 studies described above.

See Evolving Composition Diagram:
"Up and Up" (study 1)
"Up and Up" (study 2)
"Up and Up!" (incorporates studies 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7)
"Each Thing Has Its Place"
Untitled, plates 5 and 6 of 9, from the illustrated book, "Differentiate"
Untitled, plate 4 of 5, from the illustrated book, "Duration and Intensité”
"Prelude to Faith"
"Up and Up" diptych

See Related Works in the Catalogue:
Untitled, no. 3 of 3, from the series, "Evening of My Life"
Untitled, no. 4 of 4, from the series, "Inner Truths or Outer Truths"

About the "Up and Up” edition:
Outside the edition of 9, there is 1 known variant impression. It has no hand additions and is signed and inscribed "premiere epreuve" in the artist’s hand. There are also 2 known cancellation proofs of this plate, each with a large "X" drawn across the composition from each corner of the plate.
Background:: Benjamin Shiff, the director of the Osiris imprint, collaborated with Bourgeois in a highly experimental phase of printmaking that occupied the last years of her life, from 2005 to 2010. He first established a working relationship with the artist in the 1990s, but the late period is particularly noteworthy for the innovative and complex large-scale projects that evolved at that time. Shiff made use of professional workshops for printing, but he oversaw the creation of the printing plates as Bourgeois worked on them in her home studio. He also provided assistance as she added extensive hand additions and texts, and as she combined individual compositions into multi-panel works and illustrated books.
Curatorial Remarks:: The color of the hand additions and paper type could not be documented because this work is not in MoMA's Collection and could not be examined in person. The plate dimensions are from the published impression in MoMA’s Collection. The sheet dimensions were provided by the Louise Bourgeois Studio.