Fabric Works revisited 18th December 2010

“A newly widowed woman collects the top underwear of her late husband unwashed, and makes a doll with elastic and places it in her bed in his place.

Smell of sweat- it is a symbol of life

Smell of feet and caress of feet related to bring my slippers

Smell of lavender lotion for the hair stirs palpitations after past a half century

The white loose shirt over the pants- kind of bomber jacket

The back of the shirt spread over the back of pants, after having been in the bathroom.”

It may have been the memory of the previous viewing or perhaps the above quote from Louise Bourgeois’ handwritten inscription published in The Creative Process (1973) that compelled me to revisit Hauser & Wirth a week later. During the interim I took time to reflect upon what I had seen; time that allowed filtration to transpire. Collectively, the work was exhibited in a manner that placed emphasis upon the fabric drawings by the deft juxtaposition of the assemblages in relation to earlier mixed media sculptures. Individually, certain works left an indelible impression and other pieces seemed to merge with others via the mediating process of recollection.

The immense, squat form of Crouching Spider (2003) appeared to dominate the cold concrete floor of the gallery space. Yet my eyes were promptly drawn towards the surrounding fabric installations. Even the prominent and visually complex Bullet Hole (1992) didn’t divert attention from the Fabric Works. An untitled work of 2006 (a 1.5 square metre of felt material with check pattern and hand-stitched shibori cotton spiral) had a distinctive presence created by the subtle use of colour and texture. A second untitled work also of 2006 used what appeared to be stained pillow case fabric with a horizontal stripe pattern. This particular artwork with its strong polygonal symmetry and yellowed appearance resonated strongly with me. Perhaps it brought back memories of the pillow case of a long dead relative. Like all of the fabric collages, it was exhibited in a box frame that prevented the satisfaction of my olfactory curiosity. The feeling of intimacy created by the piece appeared to have been conjured by dint of viewing an object reconstituted from the artist’s personal effects. Germano Celant deftly positioned the work in close enough proximity to Crouching Spider to prompt an apposite dialogue between the form of the spider and the web-like interstices of the design.

Untitled (2006)

An adjacent building housed three rooms that included such sculptural works as Single II (1996), Peaux de Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles á Vendre (2006) and Conscious and Unconscious (2008). The sculptures provided a thematic context for the fabric drawings. The fabric designs ranged from work with a figurative/ narrative aspect such as The Waiting Hours (2007) a sequence of twelve works reminiscent of moonlit seascapes to the highly decorative twelve piece The Commitment (2008).

The Waiting Hours (2007)

The above extract entitled The Creative Process written by Louise Bourgeois serves an apt and lyrical subtext to the exhibition. The works are, of course, autobiographical and deeply personal. The artist’s complex relationship with her parents informs the way in which the fabric derived from the family business is reconstructed. There is a strong sexual element to the work that is a comment on the sexual politics played out within the Bourgeois household. Single II takes on the form of an enlarged, suspended Haitian voodoo doll. Although the work displays male genitalia, a feminine quality has been achieved in part by the body being assembled using stocking material. Does the figure present the idea that the paternal, conjugal and feminine aspects are integral components of masculine identity? There are echoes of a much earlier and overtly androgynous sculpture entitled Fillette (1968). “From a sexual point of view I consider the masculine attributes to be extremely delicate”, Bourgeois stated in an interview regarding the work “They're objects that the woman, myself, must protect…” The narrative inscribed in The Creative Process obliquely refers to Bourgeois and portrays the widow as an obsessive collector of personal items that are appropriated in a way that preserves the physical presence of the deceased husband. The ephemeral is made tangible with the creation of a doll that maintains the personal scent of a loved one. In the same way as highlighted in the text, the artist reincarnated childhood memories to conjure an amalgamation of past and present.

  Single II (1996)

As mentioned frequently, Bourgeois’ metier tackles personal themes. However, it appears that this is only part of an intellectual method used to construct work that has universal relevance. There is still a self-conscious imperative towards making visually and cerebrally stimulating art that both entertains and challenges the viewer.

Louise Bourgeois: Fabric Works 12th December 2010

Anyone familiar with the work of the late Louise Bourgeois will understand the inextricable link between her work within the context of her personal history. Fabric Works held at the Saville Row gallery Hauser & Wirth has cannily displayed the later fabric collage work of Bourgeois with some earlier mixed media pieces.

Although Crouching Spider (2003) dominates the gallery space, it was the intimacy of the polygonal collages that drew me into the well-balanced space. The harmony of the exhibition didn’t depend solely upon the complimentary juxtaposition of the works; it was also enhanced by creating a credible foil between the scale and texture of certain pieces such as Bullet Hole (1992), a black cell housing ambiguous wooden orbs, and the many untitled fabric sculptures that lined the walls. Exhibition curator Germano Celant refers to the connection between the artists past and makes visible the link between Bourgeois’ relationship with her parents and their tapestry restoration business. The dialogue between Crouching Spider and the untitled collages is that of the arachnid weaving, as the artist herself has, an abode of memories. The collages are stained; sometimes as part of a natural process and occasionally in a conscious manner.

New Chapter 20th November 2010

A member of staff at Jerwood Space recommended that I also visit new work exhibited at Poppy Sebire located on Copperfield Street SE1. Ms Sebire (and her terrier, Louis) welcomed me into a gallery that is both intimate and airy, allowing adequate space to reflect upon the work. The exhibition was sensitively curated with themes of natural history, masks and abstract hand coloured etchings positioned harmoniously next to one another. Boo Ritson is a sculptor who works within multi-media. She has recently produced sculptural work that links the three media. Previous work by Ritson was a media hybrid of painting, photography and elements of performance art. Models are clothed according to specific occupations or (stereo) type. The artist paints directly onto models in a manner reminiscent of recent portraits by Glenn Brown and then she photographs them as living sculptural forms. The effect is heightened by concealing the eyes with reflective sunglasses. The obscuring effect of the eyewear creates a jarring sensation in the viewer (this sensation is attenuated in the images where the model doesn’t wear the sunglasses. It is as though the illusion is contingent upon the anonymous persona of the living mannequin). After four years of developing her practice, Ritson’s work appears to have evolved further towards statuary constituents in her imagery. The most prominent work on display is a painted costume placed beside a large format photograph of a model wearing the same. One is conscious that there is an allusion towards fetish outfits (the livery, at first glance, appears to be a rubber nurses uniform), but also an idea of theatrical costume. Somewhat unnerved, I felt that there was a blurring between the consolidated images.

Jerwood Encounters 20th November 2010

While attempting to find a Southwark street, I ventured into the Jerwood Visual Arts centre (Jerwood Space) and visited the superseding exhibition to the Jerwood Drawing Prize viewed a fortnight earlier. This Must Be The Place has been staged as part of the Jerwood Encounters exhibition and is curated by David Campany (writer, artist, curator and lecturer) and features the work of seven artists including Campany himself. The main thrust of the exhibition focuses on uses of photography as a research tool and displays images ranging from Dresden to Shanghai. Of anthropological interest is a sequence of some thirty three black and white images of a site in Barcelona photographed by Xavier Ribas. Entitled Nomads, the installation is a response to the plight of around sixty gypsy families who were removed from an empty industrial plot where they had settled. By 2004 the families had been initially intimidated and finally expelled from the land by the arrival of diggers that destroyed the area, thus making it uninhabitable. There is a degree of detachment and no authoritative assessment of the situation, which allows the audience space for subjective interpretation of the narrative.

Two of the exhibits that particularly resonated with me were a collection of limited edition hand-made books and a video installation. Dresden I-IX is a maquette for a suite of books made by Lillian Wilkie. Having never visited Dresden, but being aware of the destruction of the city during the bombings of 1945, I have a vague understanding of the geography and (historical) location through images and the anti-war literature of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The images employed in the compilation of books are geometrically constructed compositions that allow audience interpolation through the device of neutral design and terse lines of text that underscore the imagery. The viewer can, to a point, create their own meaning from the neutrality of the sparse cityscapes.

The digital video installation by David Campany, One Way Street in China, caught my attention by means of the subject matter and the juxtaposition of projected still and moving images. Described as being “(a) collection of aphorisms and observations on city life published in 1928”, the title of Campany’s installation is derived from a text by Walter Benjamin entitled One Way Street. I am personally interested both in South East Asia and the phenomenon of experiencing things that are mundane as possessing almost mystical aspect when witnessed in a new country. An example of this can be seen in the work of the artist Camille Fallet (also one of the featured artists in the exhibition). When visiting London for the first time, he took a substantial number of photographs “as if he knew (that) his judgment would be most acute before he became too familiar with it”. Campany consciously made a small piece of work each day during his seventy day visit to Xiamen and Shanghai. This method of working alludes, to some degree, to Walter Benjamin’s (supposed) manner of writing the above text. A further reason for my interest in One Way Street in China lies in the mode of production and photojournalistic attributes possessed by the installation. A still image is “animated” by placing and removing a variety of objects (a wok, an ornament, a book & c) on a table in front of a reclining woman. Persistence of vision confounds spectator perception of the still and moving imagery. “Low tech” split screen footage is interwoven between monochromes that become polychrome saturated images.