Louise Bourgeois

Xavier Hufkens is pleased to announce an exhibition of late fabric sculptures and gouaches by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010). For Louise Bourgeois, fabric and sewing held great symbolic significance. Born into a family of tapestry restorers, she was surrounded by textiles as a child, and was witness to her mother's constant efforts at conservation and repair. Bourgeois also helped in the atelier, drawing in the missing parts of tapestries that needed reweaving. The artist came to associate sewing with reconstruction, reparation and reconciliation. In contrast to her earlier bodies of work, in which aggressive acts of separation, like cutting and carving, were predominant, Bourgeois's late work focused on joining elements together, a restorative act that helped to dispel anxiety and her life-long fear of abandonment.