SAO PAULO.- Tomie Ohtake Institute presents for the first time in Latin America the greatest exhibit of work by Louise Bourgeois: the return of the repressed, from July 8 to August 28, 2011. Bourgeois, one of the most well known artists of the 20th century, was born in Paris in 1911 and traveled and lived in the United States from 1938 until her final days in 2010.
The exhibition opens with the famous spider Maman (1999) displayed in the entrance to Tomie Ohtake Institute, and in the interior rooms display a collection of 86 pieces. Her first sculptures, in which the spiral appears along with various forms and figures that figure prominently in her work, include the Arch of Hysteria, 1993; Spider, 1997, and the emblematic installations Red Room (Parents), 1994, and The Destruction of the Father, 1974. A solid and extensive collection of drawings and sculptures highlight Bourgeois’ radical thoughts and reflections on love: filial, parental, familiar—love itself.
The pieces are a testament to the impact of psychoanalysis on the artist’s thoughts and reveal how her dialogue with this discourse created an emotional universe involving the complexities, conflicts, and subtleties of contemporary life. The interior world, family relationships, the role of the father, the mother, the daughter, and the wife are treated in a singular and personal manner, converting Bourgeois into an icon of the most transcendental themes of the twentieth century.
Her famous hanging pieces, pendants on a string, show the fragility, the delicacy of the events, demonstrating the ambivalence between the exterior world and the interior world of the subject.
In the words of the curator, "All the works have been selected to highlight the enduring presence of psychoanalysis as a motivational force and a site of exploration in her life and work."
Louse Bourgeois: the return of the repressed, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, is organized in conjunction with the Louise Bourgeois Studio in New York and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Sao Pablo, Brazil.
