“He Disappeared Into Complete Silence”
There were a lot of remarkable pieces in the Louise Bourgeois exhibit at the Hirshorn but I was struck in particular by the etchings series, “He Disappeared Into Complete Silence.” This is from plate one:
“Once there was a girl, and she loved a man. They had a date next to the eighth street station of the sixth avenue subway. She had put on her good clothes and a new hat. Somehow he could not come. So the purpose of this picture is to show how beautiful she was. I really mean that she was beautiful.”
It was a sad series (I read in the catalog later that Bourgeois had meant for the etchings to document her sinking into a deep depression), but that first piece made me erupt into giggles.
Tags: Hirshorn, Louise Bourgeois
March 18th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I thought the giant spider was full of awesomeness, personally. Oh, and the red-lit dinner table with the dismembered father fantasy… yeah Louise had demons
March 20th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Yeah, I liked the spiders too–and those rooms she created. Demons indeed! But there was something kind of playful about the work too, I thought.