Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Louise Bourgeois – Saint Sebastienne (1992)
- Description
- Specifications
- The Maker
Bourgouis is a central figure in modern art history—and in Louisiana's collection. A retrospective exhibition in 2003, Louise Bourgeois - Life as Art, was followed in 2016 by the exhibition, Louise Bourgeois. Structures of Existence: The Cells—a display of large, spatial "sculptures" from the artist's later years: open and dissected figures, with a rawness and rigor that was typical of Louise Bourgeois.
Louise Bourgeois has always drawn, and as the very close medium between the body and the image, the drawing is, it has always had a special status in her art, whether it materializes in charcoal, chalk, ink or in various printing techniques.
Louise Bourgeois' work is full of autobiographical material, father disputes, painful experiences from life as a child and as a woman. It revolves around confinement, surveillance and nightmares. Experiences that just won't let go and which are apparently close to the traumatic, like a psychotherapeutic bond alley.
But it is not. Bourgeois's art is borne of a clear awareness of just this. And this means that even though the work originates from something private, it can very well be fully accessible to the viewer—and to Bourgeois herself.
- Brand:Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark
- Country: Printed in Denmark
- SKU: LA-108026-FJ
- Material: Printed on paper.
- Dimensions:33.1" x 23.4" (A1)
From the beginning, the founder, Knud W. Jensen, intended for the museum to be a home for modern Danish art. But after only a few years he changed course, and instead of being a predominantly Danish collection, Louisiana became an international museum with many internationally renowned works.
Louisiana's close contact and collaboration with the international arts and cultural milieu has since been one of the museum's greatest strengths. And also one of the main reasons that it has been possible for Louisiana to present an exhibition program that has resonated so strongly with the public over the years. Louisiana has thus achieved a standing as one of the world's most respected exhibition venues, and in the future, it will be able to attract exhibitions and artists at a level that few other museums—either in Denmark or abroad—can match.
Knud W. Jensen put into action many of the period's visionary ideas about modern museum operation, including a desire for art to have a wide audience. It has always been the view at Louisiana that art is not just for an elite but includes experiences and visions for the many.
Why is it called Louisiana?
Many people wonder about the name of the museum. The short explanation is this—a nobleman and his three wives.
Knud W. Jensen chose to "take over" the name of the country house that he later converted to a museum. The property had been built and named in 1855 by Alexander Brun (1814-93), who was an officer and Master of the Royal Hunt and who married three women who were all named Louise.
Here at Louisiana, he was a pioneer in beekeeping and the cultivation of fruit trees.
From the beginning, it was Knud W. Jensen's vision to create a museum with soul, where the public could encounter artwork—not as something pretentious, but rather something that spoke directly to the viewer. And he emphasized the need for "supplementary content" that could help bring alive and enrich the environment: The more opportunities for experience that the program offers, the more Louisiana lives up to its idea—to be a 'musical meeting place' and a milieu that is engaged in contemporary life.
—Knud W. Jensen
