Restless mind

Andrew Lambirth

Wednesday, 17th October 2007

Exhibitions 1: Louise Bourgeois

The substantial catalogue which accompanies the show is really a book and claims to be the most complete survey of Bourgeois’s career in print. It runs to over 300 pages and contains 160 colour and 80 b&w illustrations. The text is cunningly arranged as an A–Z gazetteer of Bourgeois themes and interests, seasoned with provocative quotes from the artist (‘Art is the acceptance of solitude’) and more lengthy entries and mini-essays by professional commentators. It’s probably the best publication the Tate has produced in recent years, and at £24.99 in paperback is not excessively priced.

The exhibition tours to the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the spring of 2008, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in the summer, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in the autumn and the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington DC in spring 2009. Meanwhile, there are two commercial exhibitions of recent work by Bourgeois, sculptures and works on paper at Hauser & Wirth Colnaghi, 15 Old Bond Street, W1 (until 17 November) and prints on cloth and paper at Marlborough Graphics, 6 Albemarle Street, W1 (until 2 November). Louise Bourgeois may be 97 years old, but her compulsion to create is undimmed. She works every day with a seamstress and printmaker, and in her leisure time surfs the internet. An inspiration to us all?