Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)

Untitled (Five Arms)

Details

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
Untitled (Five Arms)
signed with the artist's initials 'LB' (lower right)
handkerchief, plastic arms and threads in lime wood box
12 1/8 x 12 1/8 x 1¼in. (30.5 x 31 x 3.2cm.)
Executed in 1996

Provenance

Galleria Collica, Catania.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

G. Celant, Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works, Milan 2010, no. 52 (illustrated in colour, p. 83).

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Pièce Unique, Louise Bourgeois, 1995.
Venice, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Louise Bourgeois Handkerchiefs, 2000, no. 21 (illustrated in colour, unpaged).

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Lot Essay

'In Untitled (Five Arms) the handkerchief and the piece of cloth "hold" portions of a doll...illuminat[ing] a world of "residues" that seem marginal but actually form the crux of Bourgeois's discourse. [It is a "drawing"] composed of objects, in the manner of Surrealist narration, that [is] not fixed in a rigid structure but live[s] by dismemberments and metamorphoses...compositions of an experience that is expressed by means of ephemeral and residual entities which tend to communicate in a language that feeds on self-revelation...These maps of cloth, on which objects or images are set, sewn or embroidered, are a gaze turned on the infinity of the private that is hidden, because it is tormented by the fear. So what is found on the squares of fabric, handkerchiefs or the like is a "stigma," a brand that implies both a mask and a lack.'

(G. Celant, Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Works, Milan 2010, p. 18.)

Untitled (Five Arms)

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