LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

Themes:

Abstraction

Techniques:

Etching

Description:

panel (a): Pencil
panel (b): Soft ground etching, with hand additions
panel (c): Pencil

Support:

Paper

Dimensions:

plate (in 2 vertical parts) (overall): 59 13/16 × 33 11/16" (152 × 85.6 cm); sheet (approx.): 59 3/4 × 108" (151.8 × 274.3 cm)

Signature:

panel (c): "LB" lower right sheet, pencil.

Inscription:

panel (a): "Nothing doing / doing nothing / rejecting at every turn / break down!" center sheet, pencil, artist's hand.
panel (c): "I leave / I hide / I shut up / I look the other way" 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 4 unique variants, printed alone or in combination with another plate in a multi-panel work. When the plate is used alone, the work is included in the Evolving Composition Diagram. When it is printed with another plate, it is included in Related Works in the Catalogue.

See Evolving Composition Diagram:
"Printemps"
"Tourbillon (#1)"
Untitled, no. 3 of 4, from the series, "Start Something!!"

See Related Works in the Catalogue:
"Love Is As Big As the Sky"

"Tourbillon" was not issued as a published edition.

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.

Installation Remarks:

This composition is one of 4 that constitute a single work of art. All of these compositions are to be exhibited together in the indicated sequence.

Curatorial Remarks:

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 an impression in MoMA's Collection. The overall mediums and sheet dimensions for the series were provided by the Louise Bourgeois Studio.

© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY