CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/12/2016

Louise Bourgeois: I Have Been to Hell and Back

Louise Bourgeois' "The Birth" (2007) is reproduced from I Have Been to Hell and Back, published by Hatje Cantz and available at our new Los Angeles store, ARTBOOK @ Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, opening Sunday. Bourgeois is quoted, "The making of the art is an insight into the source of compulsion, a relief and a deflation of compulsion. Tension builds for an unknown reason, and yet it can be explored. Think of the top coming off a pressure cooker, and the steam releasing; or of the relief of sexual tension. Cravings like this, or like the craving for food, may be solved by understanding what they mean. Can you do without chocolate, for example? Perhaps the craving for chocolate is tied to a recollection of a kiss you did not get; the craving was not satisfied, and you feel the painful emotion. Art is the privilege of insight into craving. The craving is not cured, but it is acted out, indulged, and in some way understood. In my work, I see from the point of view of the seducer. The fact that I might be passively seductive doesn’t even enter my mind; I am the hunter who actively tries to seduce someone else. Of course, this effort is eternally in vain, but also eternally repeated. I am both the unfortunate seducer and the indefatigable seducer. The fact that I might appear seductive to someone else doesn’t even occur to me."