Louise Bourgeois Archives

ARTIST ROOMS: Louise Bourgeois, A Woman Without Secrets

28 November 2013

For our November Spin event we will meet at Modern One for a discussion of the ARTIST ROOMS: Louise Bourgeois exhibition, A Woman Without Secrets. Lucy Askew, Senior Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art will be joining us to talk about the exhibition and the ARTIST ROOMS programme.

 A Woman Without Secrets is a major presentation of late works by the great French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010). The exhibition is the first showing of an outstanding collection of works on loan to the national ARTIST ROOMS programme, including Poids (1993), Couple I (1996), Cell XIV (Portrait) (2000), Eyes (2001-2005), and two late masterpieces, the cycle of 16 monumental drawings A L’Infini (2008-2009) and the artist’s final vitrine, Untitled (2010). The exhibition also includes loans from Tate, The Easton Foundation and private collections. This exhibition considers how Bourgeois worked with a variety of materials and scales, and how she explored the mystery and beauty of human emotions.

 Complementing the Modern Art’s exhbition, The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh is also showing an exhibition of Bourgeois’s works on paper: Louise Bourgeois: I Give Everything Away. Their exhibition features 220 of the artist’s Insomnia Drawings (1994-95) and runs until 23 February 2014.

From Death to Death and Other Small Tales

28 March 2013 at 6pm

For our March event, we will be back on home territory visiting From Death to Death and Other Small Tales: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the D. Daskalopoulos Collection at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One.

This remarkable exhibition brings together works from one of the foremost private holdings of modern and contemporary art, the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, with major works from the Gallery of Modern Art’s collection.

From Death to Death includes a range of works that focus on the body as a theme in 20th and 21st-century art practice, as well as providing a new context for both collections, with artworks often staged in surprising juxtapositions.

Since 1994, private collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos has amassed a body of iconic modern and contemporary artworks that collectively express a personal vision and sensibility. Artists represented within the exhibition include Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Gober, Paul McCarthy, Ernesto Neto, Mike Kelley and Sarah Lucas.

Keith Hartley, Chief Curator at the Gallery of Modern Art, will join us in to discuss selected works in the exhibition and will give an insight into the process of collaborating with a private collector. 

 

Spin-off Trip to the Venice Biennale 2005

21-25 October 2005

For our first overseas trip, Spin members visited one of the most exciting, prestigious and significant contemporary art festivals in the world, the Venice Biennale.

The 51st International Art exhibition marked the 110th year of its existence, and surprisingly, the first time that two women had been at the directorial helm. Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez, art historians, critics and independent curators from Spain, created two very different, but complementary shows that captured the spirit of the international, contemporary art scene. Universally and critically acclaimed, the 2005 Biennale was hailed as one of the most coherent, intelligent and imaginative shows in recent memory.

Held every two years, the Venice Biennale brings together over 70 nations, and among the countries exhibiting in 2005 for the first time, were Morocco, Albania, Afghanistan, China and Northern Ireland. The Giardini, house the official national pavilions (31 in total) which showcase the best of each country’s contemporary artists. In 2005, Britain was represented by the controversial duo, Gilbert and George.

One of the main highlights of the Spin trip, was a visit to the Italian Pavilion in the Giardini. Maria de Corral has curated an exhibition entitled The Experience of Art which presented the work of over 40 established and up-and-coming, international artists. Working in a variety of media, from installation and painting to sculpture and video, artists included Rachel Whiteread, Francis Bacon, Willie Doherty, William Kentridge, Barbara Kruger, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Agnes Martin.

Members also visited Always a Little Further, curated by Rosa Martinez, housed in the Arsenale – the famous old dockyard of Venice. The work of over 40 international artists was beautifully presented in this unique environment, featuring videos, photography, painting, sculpture and installation. Louise Bourgeois, Mona Hatoum and the Guerrilla Girls feature in the line-up.

Of the 30 collateral exhibitions and events spreading across the city of Venice, Spin members visited Scotland’s second presentation at the Biennale, Selective Memory: Scotland & Venice, housed at the Scoletta, next door to the historical Scuola de San Rocco. Glasgow-based artists Cathy Wilkes, Alex Pollard and Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan created challenging new work in a visually powerful show. We also visited the Welsh and North Irish pavilions and the presentations from Lithuania, Estonia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Iran.