Louise Bourgeois “Suspension” at Cheim & Read, New York

“Suspension” presents an exhibition of hanging works by Louise Bourgeois. Spanning more than forty-five years – from the organic Lair forms of the early 1960s and the Janus series of 1968, to the cloth figures of the 1990s and the hanging heads of the 2000s, and the torqued spirals of shining aluminum made in the last years of Bourgeois’s life – they demonstrate the myriad ways in which she approached materials, form, and scale. They also affirm the various readings of Bourgeois’s work, whether formal, psychological, biographical, or experiential. For Bourgeois the sculptures’ suspension is an expression of the psyche; as she stated: “Horizontality is a desire to give up, to sleep. Verticality is an attempt to escape. Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence.” In psychology, ambivalence refers to conflicting but coexisting feelings for the same person, place, or event. The many dualities at play within Bourgeois’s oeuvre (organic/geometric; rigid/pliable; male/female) provide this condition with fertile ground. Photo Elise Gallant