Louise Bourgeois, Abstraction and Archetypes in Modern Sculpture
"Contemporary and ancient art are like oil and water, seemingly opposite poles....now I have found the two melding ineffably into one, more like water and air." Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese artist Louise Bourgeois, Untitled , 1952, Spring , 1949 and Mortise , 1950 National Gallery of Art Two separate exhibitions in Washington at the moment illustrate the commonality of modern art and prehistoric -- especially in sculpture. The me, that theme resonates with two sculptors who lived through most of the 20th century, Louise bourgeois and Isamu Noguchi. The National Gallery has a two-room exhibition Louise Bourgeois:No Exit , and Noguchi (hopefully in another blog) 's works are part of the Hirshhorn's exhibition, Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York . Constantin Brancusi, Endless Column, 1937 Three sculptures by Bourgeois in the National Gallery are what she called personages. As a whole they're not unlike the archetypal images of Henry Moo...