From No Man's Land to Woman's Work: Boltanski and Bourgeois

I was dumbstruck, while wandering through the recent Christian Boltanski installation, No Man’s Land, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, to learn from one of my companions of Louise Bourgeois’s death.  What a strange place to hear of the loss of one of my favorite artists. It seemed the sadness I was experiencing was amplified like the human heartbeats emanating from speakers on black metal poles.

 

photo by Kristy Knight

I thought about Bourgeois’s many works made of recycled textiles as we wandered through a grid created by discarded clothing while a menacing robotic red claw mechanically picked up and dropped more abandoned clothes on a mountainous pile.

  photo by Kristy Knight

There was something desperately sad but very compelling about the experience. 

Bourgeois’s work could not be more different. She once said “my work unsettles the viewer, but nobody wants to be alarmed.”

 from Louise Bourgeois Aller-Retour: Drawings and Sculptures

And though images of violence are characterized in her early work, there came a feminine sensitivity, elegance and optimism that could not be more strikingly different from Boltanski’s work.

 Both images from Louise Bourgeois Aller-Retour: Drawings and Sculptures

I never thought of LBs work as being feminist per se but certainly her embroideries and textile art might place her there in some folk’s estimation. “the sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole”

 photo by Jeff Hirsch

Boltanski said "art is not meant to give pleasure but to ask questions and make people think"

Louise said "the subject of pain is the business I am in" 

she also made this:

 From Louise Bourgeois Aller-Retour: Drawings and Sculptures

We'll miss you, Lou