Louise Bourgeois: Works on Paper

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern of drawings and prints by Louise Bourgeois.

I knew this artist purely as ‘the big spider lady’ and therefore had slightly avoided her work as I hate spiders but this show opened my eyes to why she liked the motif of a spider and her other work.  She used spiders as her family’s business had been in tapestry.

The show started with a very tender set of etchings including a woman washing her hair and a man sleeping in a chair. I also liked a set of fabric books she had made from cloth she had kept for a long time such as the napkins from her trousseau. Some of these made up a visual poem to the river she had grown up near. I found the work quite gentle and personal and a nice contrast to the rather bombastic Polke.

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