Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A groundbreaking work edited by Germano Celant in collaboration with the artist and her New York studio that enriches our knowledge of Louise Bourgeois Louise Bourgeois, who has produced art since the 1930s, began in the 1990s to use her clothes and the clothes of her loved ones as components in her sculptures and drawings. It is as much a reincarnation of her past and her childhood as a confirmation of her relationship with memory. Her visual approach to fabrics transforms decorative accessories into emotional and personal references which, especially in her Cells and later in her drawings, create representations of a tormented and at the same time powerful womanhood. Further development of the artist's work began in 2002: exploiting the iridescent colours and formal structural properties of pieces of her clothing, she created "The Fabric Drawings," astonishing works alternating between floral figurative pieces and chromatic abstractions. This set of images is collected here in its entirety for the first time, constituting the closest thing yet to a general catalogue.

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Publishers Weekly Review

This elegantly produced and extensive catalogue includes more than 300 sculptures, assemblages, and collages by artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), the majority created after 2002 and accompanying the 2010 Fabric Works exhibition in Venice. "It is not an image that I am seeking," Bourgeois said. "It's not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving, and of destroying." In the 1990s, Bourgeois started using her own and others' clothing to refashion the diverse range of emotions embodied in her sculpture. Photographs of Bourgeois's work are interspersed with her diary entries, poems, and interview excerpts, often provocative ("How much violence is there in you today... how can I possibly find out?") and revealing ("I blame someone when I am upset or when I have failed..."). Art critic Celant's intellectually rigorous and graceful essay prefaces the collection and persuasively contextualizes her fabric works as an autobiographical visual diary connected to Russian Suprematism, Italian Futurism, and the German Bauhaus. A brief but revealing essay by Bourgeois follows, describing her family's deep connection to tapestry making: her mother's roots in Aubusson and her family's renowned tapestry gallery in Paris. This exceptional collection reveals how weaving, fabric, and pattern were literally and metaphorically intrinsic to Bourgeois's recreation of emotion in her art. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Germano Celant, PhD in contemporary art and theory, is the author of more than 100 publications. He is also the curator of hundreds of exhibitions in the most prominent international museums and institutions.