THE HAGUE.- Gemeentemuseum Den Haag has acquired two large sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, the grande dame of modern art, on long-term loan. Bourgeois’ work is held in great affection all over the world, among both art-lovers and the general public. The Louise Bourgeois Studio owns a number of the artist’s larger sculptures, and it loans them to only a handful of museums in the world. This now includes Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, alongside Tate Modern, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and DIA Art Foundation. With the arrival of ‘Spider Couple’ (2003) and ‘Clouds and Caverns’ (never previously displayed) in The Hague, the museum has a new international attraction in the form of three large sculptures.

The Gemeentemuseum has become one of the Louise Bourgeois Studio’s permanent partners in Europe. ‘The fact that we are receiving long-term loans, ranking alongside the likes of Tate Modern, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and DIA Art Foundation, says a great deal about the status of our modern art collection’, says director Benno Tempel. ‘With the world’s largest collection of Mondrians, blockbusters like the Mark Rothko exhibition and the presentation of The Vincent Award, the museum is a key player in the modern and contemporary art world. The arrival of “Spider Couple” and “Clouds and Caverns” strengthens our position even further.’

Only museum in the Netherlands
In 2010, with support from the Friends of the Gemeentemuseum and various funds, the Gemeentemuseum became the first and only museum in the Netherlands to acquire a piece from Louise Bourgeois’ renowned later period: ‘Cell XXVI’ (2003). Thanks partly to the museum’s good relations with the artist, it was financially feasible for the Gemeentemuseum to purchase the piece. ‘She was happy for the Gemeentemuseum to have one of her sculptures’, says Tempel. The only other Dutch museum with sculptures by Louise Bourgeois is the Kröller-Müller, which has a number of her early works. This makes the Gemeentemuseum the only museum in the Netherlands that houses large sculptures from her renowned later period.

Partnership with Louise Bourgeois Studio
The purchase of ‘Cell XXVI’ in 2011 gave rise to the ‘Double Sexus’ exhibition, in which the artist herself was closely involved. When Bourgeois died shortly before the opening, at the age of 98, the museum completed preparations for the exhibition with the Louise Bourgeois Studio. The Gemeentemuseum’s close relationship with the artist and the studio has now been confirmed by the long-term loan. The museum has taken possession of a sculpture from the famous spider series and another work never exhibited before. The two sculptures now occupy a place of honour among the permanent exhibit of modern art, amidst other artists from the 1980s.

Spider as mother metaphor
‘Spider Couple’ (2003) is one of a series of sculptures of spiders on which Louise Bourgeois worked from the 1990s to her death in 2010. The sculptures are a tribute to her mother, a carpet weaver and ‘spinner of yarns’. The gigantic spiders – some friendly, others menacing – have been shown all over the world, from the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. ‘Spider Couple’ shows a mother spider protecting and restricting her child. An apt illustration of the ambiguity that typified Bourgeois’ relationship with her mother.

The body as a heavenly landscape
‘Clouds and Caverns’ (1982-1989) has never before been displayed in a museum. The Studio has loaned the work to the Gemeentemuseum because Berlage’s architecture makes an ideal setting for it. The sculpture resembles a heavenly landscape. Louise Bourgeois suffered from a severe form of insomnia. She therefore used the night-time hours to produce journal-like sketches: drawing of shapes that recall spirals, labyrinths and landscapes. ‘Clouds and Caverns’ seems to be a three-dimensional version of these night-time drawings. At the same time, it may well refer to Bourgeois’ ideas about the body. ‘Our own body could be considered, from a topological point of view, a landscape with mounds and valleys and caves and holes. So it seems rather evident to me that our body is a figuration that appears in Mother Earth’, Bourgeois once said.

Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois the ‘grand old lady’ of modern art, did not experience her breakthrough until very late in life. The first major retrospective of her work was staged at the Museum of Modern Art in New York when she was 71. Now that Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou have also devoted major exhibitions to her work, she is regarded as one of the world’s most important artists. Her work is part of the Surrealist tradition, but because she draws on her own, highly personal experiences (particularly of her youth), it is also universally recognisable. In her Cells, sculptures (including a number of rag dolls), drawings and her famous Spiders, Bourgeois sought to express the pain that human relationships can bring to the soul.