Florence dedicates two exhibitions to Louise Bourgeois. One of her most famous large spiders will also be on display

From June 22 to October 2024, two exhibitions will be dedicated to Louise Bourgeois (Paris, 1911 - New York, 2010) in Florence, involving the Museo Novecento and the Museo degli Innocenti, and brought together under the title Louise Bourgeois in Florence, a project organized and coordinated by the Museo Novecento.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of its opening, the Museo Novecento therefore celebrates the artist, among the absolute protagonists of 20th and 21st century art, with the exhibition Do Not Abandon Me, curated by Philip Larratt - Smith and Sergio Risaliti in collaboration with The Easton Foundation. Designed in close dialogue with the architecture of the Ex Leopoldine, the exhibition will be an opportunity to appreciate live nearly one hundred works by Louise Bourgeois, including many on paper, including gouaches and drawings, made in the 2000s as well as sculptures of various sizes, in fabric, bronze, marble and other materials. Great anticipation also exists for Spider Couple (2003), one of her most famous and emblematic creations, which will be placed in the museum’s courtyard.

Strongly desired by the director of the Museo Novecento and whose gestation dates back six years, the exhibition will occupy almost the entirety of the Ex Leopoldine building, between the rooms on the ground and second floors. It will be the most extensive and important survey of Louise Bourgeois’ red gouaches with a thematic focus on the motif of mother and child. The title of the exhibition refers to Bourgeois’ lifelong fear of abandonment, which in this case refers to the mother-child dyad, which forms the model for all future relationships. Motherhood and the anxieties associated with it were central to Bourgeois’ conception of herself. At the same time, as old age made her more fragile and more dependent on others, an unconscious shift toward the mother again characterized her work. Made in the last five years of her career, the gouaches explore the cycles of life through an iconography of sexuality, procreation, birth, motherhood, nurture, dependency, couple, family unity, and flowers. To make them Bourgeois worked “wet on wet”: this meant relinquishing some control over the end result to accommodate the play of chance and fate. Red, among the favorite and most recurrent colors in his work, evokes within the gouaches bodily fluids, such as blood and amniotic fluid. Of particular interest is Louise Bourgeois’ collaboration with British artist Tracey Emin (Margate, 1963). The exhibition will feature a series of sixteen digital prints on fabric entitled Do Not Abandon Me (2009 - 2010), born out of the encounter between the two artists.

The cloister of the Museo Novecento will then host Spider Couple (2003), one of the artist’s famous large spiders, made in bronze. The exhibition will also be complemented by the display of two important installations: Peaux de Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles à Vendre (2006), one of the artist’s Celle, will be presented in a room on the ground floor of the museum. The title of this work refers to a childhood memory, that of the cries of rag pickers engaged in selling goods on the street. Inside the cell the artist inserts some sculptural elements that recall his personal and family history, such as cloth sacks and rabbit skins: components referable, respectively, to the empty belly (and, by extension, the female body) and, more literally, to the animals hunted and raised by his family members. The work Cross (2002) will be presented in the former church of the Renaissance building, where in its time women were forbidden to enter during the celebration of religious rites, as evidenced by the women’s gallery also separated by iron grilles. The Museo Novecento will also premiere Spider, a floor sculpture composed of a bronze spider and a marble egg, never before exhibited to the public.

Instead, the Museo degli Innocenti will host Cell XVIII (Portrait) (2000), a work of strong visual impact in forrte resonance with the history and collection of the Innocenti, chosen by Philip Larratt-Smith in dialogue with Arabella Natalini, director of the Museo degli Innocenti, and Stefania Rispoli, curator of the Museo Novecento. Cell XVIII will be in dialogue with some of the most iconic works in the collection. The subject enclosed in Cell XVIII (Portrait) seems to reinterpret in particular the iconography of the Madonna of Mercy, recurring in some of the most emblematic works of the collection and strongly representative of the institution’s vocation of hospitality.

Simultaneously with the Louise Bourgeois in Florence project, spread between Museo Novecento and Museo degli Innocenti, three exhibitions in other Italian cities dedicated to Bourgeois will take place during the same period. From June 21 to September 15 at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, The Unconscious of Memory will open to the public, and at Villa Medici the exhibition No Exit. Naples will also pay tribute to Louise Bourgeois, with the exhibition Rare Language at Galleria Trisorio, which will be on view from June 25 to Sept. 28, 2024.

Florence dedicates two exhibitions to Louise Bourgeois. One of her most famous large spiders will also be on display

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.