Louise Bourgeois: What Is the Shape of This Problem 

January 23 - June 27, 2021 | Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada (traveling exhibition)

Organized by William Morrow, Director of Exhibitions, Schnitzer Family Foundation and Naomi Potter, Director Esker Foundation

Although best known for her profound sculptures of monumental spiders, evocative human figures, and fleshy anthropomorphic forms, Louise Bourgeois maintained a prolific drawing and writing practice and an ongoing interest in illustrated books and printmaking throughout the course of her long career.

Louise Bourgeois: What is the Shape of This Problem presents 119 works with a focus on prints, textiles, and a series of eight holograms, ranging in date from the 1940s to the early 2000s. These works build on the raw emotional terrain of Bourgeois’ practice and explore feelings of isolation, anger, and fear through the recurring depiction of the body, childhood, family, architecture, and the passage of time.

Included in the exhibition are several well-known series of print and textile works, including à Ma Mère (1995), a wonderful exploration of the artist’s most recognized and iconic motif—the spider; Ode à l’Oubli (2004), her first fabric book created from her own garments; and He Disappeared into Complete Silence (1947/2005), an early illustrated book of nine engravings that depict Bourgeois’ intense reaction to New York’s architecture upon her arrival to the city in 1938 and serve as a precursor to her later monumental sculptural work.

Learn more at Esker Foundation

EXHIBITION TOUR

Jan 23 – June 26, 2021 Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada

Aug 31 – Dec 4, 2021 Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, PSU, Portland, OR

Sept 6 – Dec 3, 2022 USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA