There’s an awful lot to take in at Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. This marvellous show looks at one aspect of Bourgeois’ oeuvre which is huge in itself so I’ve focussed on just some pieces here, mainly heads. It’s worth noting the way she shapes the mouths as well as eyes (or not).
Bourgeois’ family background of tapestry restoration meant that she kept everything for possible future use.
Materiality is very important for any artist and you can see here the significance of her use of different fabrics and colours. Take, for example, the crepe bandages in the piece above. What associations do you get from that?
And this patched and layered head above?
The “kissing” heads below make me think of burn victims amongst other things though I’m not sure that was her intention.
The inclusion of eyes in the petit point tapestry head below makes this one really creepy.
Her use of surgical pink jersey fabric is mainly used for bodies as shown below.
This head with a sphincter-like mouth is fetishistic in a slightly different way to the others.
