LOUISE BOURGEOIS. Structures of Existence: The Cells

Passionate, painful, dramatic and extremely personal. The Cells by Louise Bourgeois – a large collection of strange and sensory spatial scenarios – will take over the whole of the Louisiana South Wing.

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) has gained a status as one of the most striking and influential artists of the 20th century. She is also a central figure in Louisiana’s collection, with a.o. her Spider Couple from 2003. The sculpture is from the very year when Louisiana first presented the artist in a retrospective exhibition, and now, thirteen years later, we follow up with a major exhibition that concentrates specifically on another of the artist’s most original work categories: The Cells.

The term cell plays on all the meanings of the word – from prison cell to monk’s cell to the smallest biological units of the body. Each work is an independent spatial unit filled with carefully arranged objects which in inter­action with cell walls of glass, wire mesh or old doors create sensory, psychologically tense scenarios. As always with Bourgeois, her personal history, pain and passion are the starting point for the works, which at a general level are about the familiar connection between body, architecture, objects and memory.

The exhibition occupies the entire South Wing of Louisiana and features around 25 cells on loan from collections all over the world as well as a selection of smaller sculptures, paintings and drawings. The exhibition is the first of its kind and has been organized by Haus der Kunst in Munich in collaboration with Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk.