LOUISE BOURGEOIS: COMPLETE BOOKS & PRINTS

When Bourgeois began to work increasingly with fabric for her printed and editioned works, it was inevitable that specialized expertise beyond that available in conventional fine art printshops would become necessary. That was evident when she undertook the complex editioning of the fabric book Ode à l'oubli, with Judith Solodkin of SOLO Impression, and unusual talents were required. Through a friend in the fashion industry, Bourgeois found Raylene Marasco, founder of Dyenamix, a New York firm specializing in the dyeing and digital printing of textiles, who also had expertise in screenprint. Dyenamix was able to replicate the textures and patterns of Bourgeois's old and worn fabrics to a degree the artist deemed "fantastic," and they eventually became a primary resource for the many print projects on fabric that occupied Bourgeois's last years.

As with traditional printshops, the proofing process with Dyenamix involved back-and-forth exchanges, as Bourgeois chose among techniques, fabrics, and colors. For the series Lullaby, for example, the artist decided on the bold effects of screenprint, while the 36 elements in The Fragile are mostly digitally printed. Bourgeois worked with Dyenamix until the end of her life, completing Do Not Abandon Me in 2009–10 in collaboration with British artist Tracey Emin, and To Whom It May Concern in 2010 with writer Gary Indiana.