On May 31, 2010, the world said goodbye to artist Louise Bourgeois who passed away at the age of 98. Her extraordinary career influenced many of the 20^th-century’s major movements in art and culture, from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism to Feminism. The exhibition Louise Bourgeois 1911–2010 brings together works from the beginnings of Bourgeois’ creative endeavors in New York with some of her final artistic statements created in the last years of her life. Drawing from the significant holdings of the National Gallery of Canada, supplemented by loans from the artist’s estate, this exhibition is inspired by the artist’s first solo show at Peridot Gallery in New York City in 1949–50, where she introduced her now iconic wood and metal “personage” sculptures. Bourgeois created these totemic spires as remembrances of lost loved ones, after she immigrated to America in 1938 with her husband, the late art historian Robert Goldwater. These vertically oriented forms were inspired by the awe-striking dominance of the skyscrapers surrounding the couple’s modest apartment in their adopted Manhattan metropolis. One of the best-known personages, Portrait of C.Y. (1947–49), now resides in the Gallery’s permanent collection.

Also included in the exhibition is Cell (The Last Climb) (2008), a significant recent installation by the artist constructed around the spiral staircase from her former Brooklyn studio, enclosed within a frame structure, dotted throughout with celestial blue glass spheres that appear to rise toward the sky. The spools lining the interior space of the sculpture spin threaded metaphors about the artist’s many bonds with family, friends, colleagues and confidantes. The work is a compelling ode to a life lived by one of the 20^th century’s most remarkable creative minds.

Bourgeois’ Oeuvre

Early on, Bourgeois focused on painting and printmaking, turning to sculpture only in the later 1940s. However, by the 1950s and early 1960s, there are gaps in her production as she became immersed in psychoanalysis. Then, in 1964, for an exhibition after a long hiatus, Bourgeois presented strange, organically shaped plaster sculptures that contrasted dramatically with the totemic wood pieces she had exhibited earlier. But alternating between forms, materials, and scale, and veering between figuration and abstraction became a basic part of Bourgeois’s vision, even while she continually probed the same themes: loneliness, jealousy, anger, and fear.

Bourgeois’s idiosyncratic approach found few champions in the years when formal issues dominated art world thinking. But by the 1970s and 1980s, the focus had shifted to the examination of various kinds of imagery and content. In 1982, at 70 years old, Bourgeois finally took center stage with a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art. After that, she was filled with new confidence and forged ahead, creating monumental spiders, eerie room-sized “Cells,” evocative figures often hanging from wires, and a range of fabric works fashioned from her old clothes. All the while she constantly made drawings on paper, day and night, and also returned to printmaking. Art was her tool for coping; it was an exorcism. As she put it, “Art is a guarantee of sanity.”

Influencé par l’engouement pour les marathons de danse du temps de la Grande Dépression mis en scène dans le roman « They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? » [« On achève bien les chevaux »] d’Horace McCoy, publié en 1935 et adapté au cinéma en 1969 par Sydney Pollack, Phil Collins s’est rendu à Ramallah où il a choisi neuf jeunes Palestiniens pour participer à un marathon de danse de huit heures. Avec des chansons interprétées par des artistes populaires telles Diana Ross, Beyoncé, Joy Division et Olivia Newton-John, l’installation reproduit l’ambiance d’une discothèque où le spectateur est confronté physiquement aux moments d’enthousiasme, d’euphorie, d’épuisement et de détermination vécus par les neuf danseurs.

Montreal artist Michel de Broin has gained recognition on the international artistic scene for his conceptual projects. De Broin, known for his videos, installations and sculptures, focuses on found objects and “readymade” materials that he transforms into new creations.

De Broin, who has been working and exhibiting since 1993, received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Quebec at Montreal in 1997. Afterwards, he spent several years in Berlin and Paris where he pursued his interdisciplinary art. He is interested in the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the 20th century, which broke with classical representation norms. In his performances recorded on film and video, he seeks to make visible the hidden forces that govern us. In his monumental sculptures, he juxtaposes ordinary objects, often incongruously, thereby radically transforming their meaning.

Michel de Broin has had solo exhibitions in Canada (Quebec), France (Paris) and Germany (Berlin), among others. Several of his monumental works are on display in Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto. His most recent projects include a public art installation for Nuit Blanche (White Night) in Paris, as well as a sculpture, Majestic (2010) for the international Prospect. 2 Biennial in New Orleans. He received the City of Montreal’s Prix Pierre-Ayot (2002) and Prix Graff (2006), and the Sobey Art Award (2007). His works are found in many public and private collections in France, Germany and Canada.

Annie is the daughter of Napachie and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, and the granddaughter of renowned artist Pitseolak Ashoona.

Annie’s artwork challenges conventional expectations of ‘˜Inuit’ art. Her subjects are not Arctic animals or scenes of nomadic existence from a time before settlement life; rather, her images reflect her experiences as a female artist living and working in contemporary Canada. Like her grandmother Pitseolak before her, Annie is an instinctive chronicler of her times. She fills her domestic interiors with details such as clocks and calendars, graduation photos, and Inuktitut messages stuck to the fridge in contemporary Inuit kitchens. Amongst meticulous depictions of modern outpost camp life and scenes peopled by local Cape Dorset personalities, Annie’s graphics are peppered with images of ATM cash machines, Playboy-style eroticism, the social services office, spousal abuse and the Iraqi war on television. The death of her mother Napachie in 2002 has also led Annie to explore themes of mortality and spirituality in her artwork.

Tim Lee lives and works in Vancouver

This installation features a number of works by previous recipients of the Sobey Art Award including Daniel Barrow (2010 – Prairies and the North); Tim Lee (2008 – West Coast & Yukon); Michel de Broin (2007 – Quebec) and Annie Pootoogook (2006 – Prairies and the North). Featuring prints, drawings, photography, sculpture and video installations, this modest selection of art and artists represents a cross-section of the diverse field of contemporary art production in Canada that the geographically-organized Sobey Art Award recognizes and celebrates on an annual basis.

Richard Tuttle: Art & Life (2:35)
Richard Tuttle discusses his philosophical relationship to art and life in his New Mexico studio