Louise Bourgeois, 2007 _ "10 a.m Is When You Come To Me" is  a mixed media on 40 sheets of music paper in linen covered portfolio. It refers to both Bourgeois's hands and her faithfull friend and muse Jerry Gorovoy. HE HELPED HER BY BEING THERE WITH HER WHEN SHE WAS HERSELF WITH ALL  HER POTENTIALS AND LIMITATIONS.

FRIENDSHIP....THIS IS ALL ABOUT....LOVING

Louise Bourgeois, tem 97 anos e este é um dos seus últimos trabalhos "10 a.m Is When You Come To Me"  reflete um aguardar, um encontro marcado e vivido, 10 horas é quando você vem à mim... as mãos são delas e do seu fiel amigo e muso Jerry Gorovoy que a incentiva, a acompanha nos seus trabalhos ha muitos anos.

Trabalhar juntos, dar a mão para quem precisa e saber pedir ajuda são  momentos que aprendemos a fazer a fazer ao longo de nossa vida.

The rage, fear and frustration in Louise Bourgeois' autobiographical art shocked me into understanding what it must be like to be a woman

Will Gompertz, The Guardian, October 8th 2008

The female of the species ... view of a series of paintings entitled Femme Maison by Louise Bourgeois, at Tate Modern. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi

I have been married for 15 years and I think things have gone pretty well. We have four perfectly acceptable children, we all get along OK, and as husbands go, I'm not a bad lot. I'm loyal, I recognise my wife as a superior human being and I even have the odd moment of unselfishness. (I expect such moments to be verbally recognised and physically rewarded.) My wife stays at home to look after the children because returning to the teaching job she loved was made impossible by the incompatibility of teacher's pay and the cost of childcare. The other option – of me becoming a househusband – was categorically not on the table. I don't mind a bit of gentle hoovering, but I do mind babies. They're like drunks: incomprehensible, unreasonable and prone to vomit on you. Anyway she loves it, doesn't she? Well, that's what I had assumed, until an incident a couple of weeks ago that shocked my smug, complacent, delusional self to the core.

I see a lot of modern and contemporary art; it's a pretty fundamental part of my job. The vast majority of work I see I like on some level or another. Even the stuff I don't like, I find interesting simply by dint of it existing and being revered enough to find itself in a museum or gallery; a sort of sign of the times. On the whole though, most art doesn't have an immediate emotional impact on me in the same way as, say, a David Lynch movie or an Arsenal football match does.

Art and emotion tends to be a slow burn, built up over a period of time as I get to know and really appreciate the artist and their work. In fact, I would go as far to say that the only time I have been knocked sideways by a piece of art was when I first encountered the work of Willem de Kooning in my early 20s. Of course, when I saw Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I was completely blown away, but I already knew what to expect and the sensation was more like meeting your hero in the flesh. So when I strolled along to see a retrospective of the work of the 96-year-old French/American sculptor Louise Bourgeois, I was looking forward to a cerebral hour of gentle perusing and mulling on her Femme Maison that were made by Bourgeois from 1945–47, six years after moving to New York from her native France. By this time, she was married to an American art historian called Robert Goldwater and had three children (the first of which was adopted). Goldwater was a good bloke – a loving husband and a source of intellectual companionship for Bourgeois – and she adored her children. But that didn't stop her from making a set of paintings that are so filled with rage, fear and frustration that, for the first time in my life, I began to understand what it must be like to be a woman. To have to accept that the world's view is male and all the assumptions that come with it, such as: everything you do and say is seen and judged through the prism of your sexuality, that the expectation is you will fulfil the multiple roles of mother, housekeeper, companion, worker and lover with deference and gratitude, and that men – lazy, selfish, conceited men – are not forced to wear the same, or any other straightjacket. Bourgeois's genius is that she is able to put all this across with some small paintings that are so simple they are almost naive.

All the Femme Maison (literally house woman/housewife) paintings share the same idea. In each one, a woman has a house covering her head, below which her naked body protrudes. She thinks she is safe and secure in her domestic prison, because that is all she can see around her. She has no idea that she is flashing her genitals to all and sundry, more vulnerable than ever. It's the stuff of nightmares where you are publicly exposed and shamed. These paintings succinctly sum up the struggle of every woman and their destiny to live with the responsibilities and constrictions of trying to maintain the balance of wife, mother and housekeeper while trying to retain a semblance of individuality in such sapping domestic circumstances. The simplicity of the paintings adds to the sense of entrapment; there wasn't the time for anything more studied or crafted.

Struggle within ... an artwork by Louise Bourgeois, Tate Modern. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi These works have been related back to the surrealist movement that began in the 1920s with artists such as René Magritte, where he juxtaposed two seemingly incongruous objects or situations in order to make a point. Maybe they are, she certainly knew Marcel Duchamp and André Breton, the leaders of the movement, very well. But I'm not so sure. I think her work is much more closely aligned to the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, another woman who found out early what a letdown men can be. Both Bourgeois and Kahlo created warts-and-all autobiographical art, something that had never been done by women before. They exposed themselves to expose the truth, a daunting and dangerous thing to do, which requires immense courage. An approach to making art that can be seen most obviously today in the work of Tracey Emin, another person whose art, I suspect, will prove to be just as important in years to come.

Bourgeois' Femme Maison paintings scream that women are put upon, jailed, abused and patronised. Up until seeing them I had thought I was a decent, caring husband – now I know I'm just like the rest, a chauvinistic bore. I rang my wife and mumbled some inadequate apology. She was a little taken aback, but not half as taken aback as I had been. Bourgeois made a note in her diary in 1980 that read: "The only access we have to our volcanic unconscious and to the profound motives for our actions and reactions is through shocks of our encounters with specific people." I should coco, Louise. Game, set and match to you.

Almeno per quanto mi riguarda...

Quale mamma non ha nella mente l'immagine della propria madre la quale, nel bene o nel male, le ha lasciato un segno indelebile. Una volta una mia amica mi ha detto: "dallo psicologo, ho scoperto che la mia depressione derivava da un episodio vissuto da piccola con mia madre...alla fine parte tutto da lì di come siamo adesso, no?!"

Da mamma, e non da figlia, allora dico: "Che grande responsabilità!"

Per la prima volta in Italia, verrà inaugurata a Napoli, nel Museo di Capodimonte, un’esposizione che include le opere eseguite lungo l’arco di tutta l’attività di Louise Bourgeois. L’artista - divenuta negli ultimi decenni una icona della modernità - presenta un insieme di lavori che segnano il percorso della sua produzione artistica dal secolo scorso fino ai nostri giorni, in una consapevole riflessione che coniuga la poetica e gli assunti individuali con il dettato linguistico delle avanguardie artistiche contemporanee.

Nata a Parigi nel 1911, si trasferisce col marito Robert Goldwater nel 1938 a New York, dove vive e dove ha avuto modo di iniziare la sua carriera artistica vera e propria, spaziando, con la sua vastissima produzione, nell’uso di tecniche diverse, ma sempre specialmente rivolta alla creazione di forme scultoree.

La scultura coinvolge il corpo equindi ha il potere di esorcizzare i demoni; è come definita la traccia della sua ricerca sempre tesa a scandagliare i traumi, le paure, le sofferenze. Le prime emozioni della sua infanzia in Francia sono trasferite nell’oggettività di grandi e piccole sculture attraverso un’ampia varietà di materiali dalla compattezza del marmo, al soffice dei tessuti e materiali sintetici.

L’esposizione a Capodimonte comprende circa sessanta opere, incluse due nuove installazioni della celebre serie delle Cells, mai esposte prima.

Le opere saranno collocate lungo il percorso del museo e nei nuovi spazi espositivi aperti di recente, in un dialogo con i dipinti e gli oggetti delle antiche e prestigiose collezioni permanenti del Museo di Capodimonte, a testimonianza, ancora una volta, della grande attenzione che la Soprintendenza e il suo più celebre Museo hanno da tempo riservato all’arte contemporanea.

Nella Sala Causa saranno esposte, varie sculture sospese (hanging sculptures), in tecnica mista, realizzate dagli anni ’60 ad oggi, tra cui il famoso Arch of Histerya (1993); nel cortile centrale della Reggia la grande Maman(1999) accoglierà, con l’inquietante altezza di oltre nove metri i visitatori, mentre, Crouching Spider (2003), occuperà lo spazio centrale della Sala degli Arazzi d’Avalos.

La cell, Peaux De Lapins, Chiffons Ferrailles A’ Vendre, è lo scrigno delle sue dolorose ossessioni e sarà allestita – per la prima volta - in una delle sale della pittura del Seicento napoletano, accanto alle due versione dell’ Apollo e Marsia, realizzate daJusepe de Ribera e da Luca Giordano.

Nella grande sala dedicata a Luca Giordano, sarà esposta –anch’essa per la prima volta - la cell The last Climb, che rappresenta lo scorrere del tempo ed il percorso della vita.

Una preziosa raccolta di lavori di piccola dimensione troverà una degna cornice nelle vetrine della Wunderkammer, al ‘piano nobile’ del Museo, in un affascinante confronto con i preziosi manufatti dell’antica e celebre raccolta di Casa Farnese.

L’esposizione intende testimoniare, inoltre, la molteplicità di tecniche, materiali e soluzioni che l’artista utilizza, compresa la grafica più recente.

In conclusione, un ‘omaggio’ più che dovuto a una delle personalità più rilevanti e significative del panorama dell’arte contemporanea.

La mostra è progettata e realizzata dalla Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico, Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Napoli e dallo Studio Louise Bourgeois; promossa dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, dalla Regione Campania, dall’ Assessorato al Turismo e ai Beni Culturali della Regione Campania, in collaborazione con la Provincia di Napoli e il Comune di Napoli.

Data Inizio: 18/10/2008
Data Fine: 11/01/2009
Città: Napoli
Luogo: Museo di Capodimonte
Indirizzo: via Miano 2
Orario: tutti i giorni dalle 10.00 alle 19.00; Chiuso mercoledì
Telefono: 081 7499246
Sito Web: http://www.museo-capodimonte.it/

While in NY I went with a friend of mine for a brief walk around the Chelsea galleries. This exhibition by the Parisian artist Louise Bourgeois at Cheim & Read gallery inspired me the most. Bourgeois, who was born on 1911; has a very long and impressive resume, consisting of exhibitions world wide, and works across various mediums. Read about her also at the art:21 blog

Attached are some of her gouaches, which are only part of the exhibit. I enjoyed reading the Press Release

Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Pero aquí estamos juntos. Aquí, en algún sitio, juntos. Ya lo ves, nada puede separarnos.

We live together in a photograph of time

Siempre que se habla de la relación entre fotografía y cine sale a colación el film Blow up, de Michelangelo Antonioni. Hay, sin embargo, un film anterior, Ascensor para el cadalso, de Louis Malle, al que nunca se le refiere y contiene, frente al paradigma de Antonioni, resonancias similares. Si en el film de Antonioni la cuestión fotográfica se trataba desde la idea de lo testimonial, como documento, pero sin atisbo de emoción alguna –más que como atestado policial- en el caso de Ascensor para el cadalso lo fotográfico aparece además como aquello capaz de congeniar un deseo y su realización. Al final del film un mismo carrete contiene las fotos que culpabilizan a las dos parejas protagonistas. Por un lado la de los adolescentes que robaron el coche de Julien Tavernier y suplantaron su identidad para asesinar finalmente un poco a la desesperada y casi de manera fortuita a la pareja alemana. Pero por el otro las del propio Julien Tavernier abrazando tiernamente a Madame Carala (Jeanne Moreau) revelando entonces una relación sentimental que los delata como asesinos del marido de ella, el empresario Carala. La fotografía suma así en un mismo espacio de representación la proyección de deseo (estar juntos: por eso premeditan ese asesinato) y su culminación (lo están... aunque solo en la foto). La misma imagen que testifica un crimen fija un amor para siempre. Esta conciliación aparentemente imposible tiene su causa en la quietud fotográfica, que eterniza el momento. El cine, en cambio, practica un difícil equilibrismo donde la imagen que viene debe restaurar y aumentar el deseo proyectado en la anterior. Tal y como apunta Mariano Álvarez respecto al film The filmmaker’s Holiday, de Johann Van der Keuken, la (fotografía) mantiene la imagen viva en el tiempo, la salva para la memoria; el (cine) la mata para poder dar paso a las siguientes.

Jeanne Moreau contemplando las fotos donde se la ve con su amante y por la cual ambos se delatan, en en el film de Louis Malle

Documento y emoción: un espacio representacional de conjugación entre lo emocional y el atestado. O algo que, en otra línea, alimenta los trabajos actuales entorno a la memoria histórica: desdoblar el inmenso armario creado entorno a la imposibilidad de una narración personal de lo histórico, de una vivencia en términos de historia.

La tipología fotografiada de Casitas que nos muestran Duna Riera y Débora Martínez Sánchez proponen algo parecido. Por un lado las fotografías documentan una acción determinada en un lugar determinado. Concretamente, entidades arquitectónicas, construcciones: casas.  Por el otro estas fotografías no se constituyen solo como atestado, sino que intervienen decisivamente en la construcción del objeto fotografiado. Las casas son pequeños armazones hechas por las artistas con los materiales encontrados en el lugar donde las llevan a cabo. Una arquitectura fantasma, inexistente, cuya dimensión viene resaltada por la técnica fotográfica (el ojo de pez, el ángulo de toma, etc) pero que no por eso deja de servir como documento.

Esta doble condición sitúa su trabajo en el intersticio entre una fotografía de lo escultórico y una escultura de lo fotográfico, entre un arte de la vivencia y un arte de la naturaleza, o, como ya dije, entre el documento y el retrato emocional. Algo hay en ellas de los pequeños trabajos de Andy Goldsworthy, por ejemplo el hecho de usar solo materiales encontrados en el lugar donde levantan la casa. También, en cuanto a retrato arquitectónico, hay un fuerte diálogo-oposición con el tipo formal ya clásico de la fotografía alemana de los Becher. Pero por encima de ambas dialécticas (ya fuera la afirmativa respecto al Land Art o la negativa respecto a la fotografía alemana), el posicionamiento clave en Casitas se encuentra en el trabajo entorno a la dimensión de la casa, el hogar.

En 29 de marzo Débora y Duna fotografiaban, día tras día, con la insistencia que uno debe oponer a la rutina (pero al mismo tiempo nadando a favor de ésta, que es como la corriente de un río), un grupo de contenedores  de basura que se encontraban junto al mar, entre Mongat y Badalona. Lo hacían todas las mañanas, desde el tren que las conducía a Barcelona, al trabajo. Y a la vuelta. Pero también los fines de semana, como parte del paseo, de un uso nuevamente rutinario del tiempo de ocio.

El 29 de marzo, cuando se disponían a tomar otra foto, descubrieron un tanto decepcionadas que los contenedores ya no estaban. Habían desaparecido. El título, por tanto, refiere el día que la rutina les dio el volantazo. La mayoría de las fotos están tomadas desde el tren. Es una fotografía móvil. Contempla y dispara desde el movimiento.

En la compilación de Contra la Arquitectura, Giordana Bruno habla de “arquitectura móvil” a partir de las Femmes-Maison de Louise Bourgeois, desde una idea del cuerpo como primera arquitectura (o ciertas relaciones orgánicas entre cuerpo y arquitectura, como proponía Bruno Taut), hasta la idea de una arquitectura nómada, que se lleva a sí misma y anda. Incluiría a posteriori estas Casitas, porque tienen la condición itinerante de una tienda de campaña, un carácter efímero y surgen del diálogo entre el individuo y el lugar. De alguna manera parodian la arquitectura deconstructivista de Frank Gehry o Rem Koolhaas. Esto es, la noción del nomadismo arquitectónico mezclada con el estilo global de desarticulación y ruptura con lo moderno. Vito Acconci se quejaba de las fotos de las revistas de arquitectura en una conversación con Doug Aitken. Al representar la arquitectura como emblema (caso del Museo Guggenheim, por poner un ejemplo cercano) la relación fotografía-arquitectura se constituye únicamente desde el eje visual de los urbanistas y geómetras: deshumanizada, compendio de números, proporciones, relaciones matemáticas y el programa informático Katia. Tanto Michel de Certeau como Manuel Delgado (y otros) han hablado de lo urbano desde otras visiones. Y han determinado cómo lo arquitectónico también se genera y desarrolla desde los usos y desusos del habitaje. Ellas retoman esta queja atravesándola con una sutil referencia al carácter inexpugnablemente íntimo de la vivienda. Me es inevitable deslizar lo siguiente: vivir es siempre vivir en.

En 29 de marzo ya ponían en solfa el concepto de relevancia del objeto fotografiado tanto desde lo documental (¿qué interés epistemológico poseen unos contenedores?) como desde lo emocional (¿qué intimidad emocional pueden despertar unos contenedores?). Ahora, en estas Casitas, la punta de lanza se clava en la convención del documento como una prueba pericial que debe observar determinadas convenciones, entre ellas, un alejamiento de lo que podría tildarse de sentimental.

Las Casitas son ante todo un lugar inexistente, una arquitectura mágica, porque se basan en el truco, el engaño, la teatralidad y lo fantástico. Pero a su vez son contextualizadoras: refieren el espacio-entorno (cada fotografía lleva por nombre el lugar donde fue realizada). Por último, concretan la idea de documento fotográfico tal y como aparece en el film de Malle, tal y como, también, se le reveló a Roland Barthes en La Cámara Lúcida. Todo documento tiene su punctum. Y el punctum no se encuentra en la condición de prueba pericial de lo fotográfico sino en una inmediata y personal relación entre la imagen y el sujeto.

I had been to the Guggenheim only once before when most of the main spiral gallery had been closed. In looking at Bourgeois’ work, it seemed that nothing else would have fit the space better. The retrospect of Bourgeois’ art stretched from floor to ceiling, winding its way from early to later years. It was a perfect way to walk, uninterruptedly, through someone’s life. The width of the ramp made the show intimate and accessible; one could walk around the sculptures and get up close to them. The show became a personal interaction between you and the artist.

On each level, wall text aided visitors, guiding them through each phase of Bourgeois artistic style. One started with her paintings and personages, phased into her phallic forms, walked around the cells of her later life and came out at the end among her soft human-esque sculptures. Somewhere in the middle, I realized that I knew the woman’s work. It finally made sense why at DIA Beacon the spider had been exhibited next to the marble phalluses. Her style of work had changed immensely!

The large changes in Bourgeois’ style could have made it difficult to curate the show, but instead the worked flowed well. Having gone from bottom to top, as one was suppose to if they wanted to see the work in chronological order, I decided to turn around and go back through Bourgeois’ work. I had had my preview, now it was time for a closer look.

Unlike many of the visitors in the sardine style packed spiral, I had opted out of the free audio guide. Though it would have given me a fuller background about the artist and her work, I wanted to experience the art on my own terms. Which pieces did I like? Which did I think were terrible? What sort of questions did I have about the art? One of my immediate questions, left unanswered, was how did the museum know how to arrange Bourgeois’s cells? In walking through the exhibit again I found that the work that I most liked was Bourgeois’ personages. These sculptural totem poles of tumbling wood or spiky sticks were simplistically beautiful and I wanted a garden of them.

Bourgeois’s best known work, of course, were her phallic forms. Her mid-career style must have shocked the art realm. I remember feeling the same ping of surprise when viewing slides of her marble and bronze cast pieces for the first time in my undergraduate freshman art history class. Looking at this work, I imagined Bourgeois as a man-eater. I could not decide whether she fit the shocking, seductress category or the outspoken feminist – in either case, she had a targeted subject matter.

The work most familiar to me, though, was Bourgeois’s spiders and cocoons. I had seen them all over the world and had not known what to make of them. Years ago, in my first encounter, I had walked under the one outside of the Bilbao Guggenheim. Through its webbed abdomen, one could view the large glass eggs the spider carried. In this experience, there were two entwined spiders whose relationship could have been seen as either threatening or embracing. They were placed perfectly within the space, on the main floor within direct view via the outside windows. The cocoons hung from ceiling, large and metal, creating an environment where I felt insignificant to the scale of the insect and arachnid world.

Standing next to Bourgeois’ intimidating spiders, I felt total embarrassment from not connecting them with the artist. Clearly a household name, Louise Bourgeois, should have been one I recognized – everyone else in the Guggenheim had. This was an important show for the newly refaced museum as the retrospective had brought in a crowd. The Guggenheim had met expectations at every step, with film screenings of Bourgeois’s performance work and an excellent presentation of her oeuvre. I could not have imagined the retrospective exhibited in any other space.

Calm is for most people a Quality....I agree. When we are calm, we can feel things better  and discriminate better our feelings too. In this way, a parent for example that see his child giving a show in a supermarket by crying, shouting ....can manage better the situation. And stop quickly the disaster ofL.Bourgeois, 2005

being exposed and feeling upset. But CALMNESS cannot be only defined by STILLNESS. You can be calm but extremely focused and full of energy! A child with hemophilia can do his self - infusion calmly and yet laugh, telling stories or singing. As I wrote the origen of the word Calm is Kauma which means flame, heat...how come? when we are calm we are full of concentrated but at the same time fluid vibes. !!! :)

C como CALMA ou CALMO: " "serenidade, sossego" "grande calor atmosférico, geralmente sem vento"

A palavra vem do latim CAUMA e do Grego KAUMA que significa "calor ardente, chama!!!"

Ou seja ser calmo não significa ser frio, sem ánimo. Estar calmo pode se observar quando a pessoa se sente SEGURA do que faz, quando SABE de que maneira proceder numa situação de perigo ou numa situação inesperada. Um exemplo claro é quando um filho de 2-3 anos dá aquele show de choro, esperneia, grita num lugar público porque está frustrado, ou desapontado. Os pais que conseguem manter a CALMA , não enganchando na raiva expressa do filho/a, sabem que va passar e não gritam com ele. Sabem que eles devem atrair a atenção do filho PARA OUTRA COISA para assim mudar de foco.

Uma criança que faz sua auto-infusão pode ser calma e mesmo assIm estar cantando, rindo, contando histórias, cheio de energía! a origem da palavra vem da chama, ou seja ardor, fogo! cómo pode não é?? pois é: uma pessoa calma é uma pessoa que sabe usar sua energia de uma maneira focada e certeira. :)

Louise Bourgeois Porträt.

All the elements together made by a woman of  93 years old. A great artist...our heart, this organ symbol of  generosity, love, passion, goodness and also where dark feelings can hide, can torment, can destroy.

Destroy to rebuilt, to transform.....built to live a better life with ourselves and our surroundings made of people, animals, nature.

"Coração" da artista Louise Bourgeois que, em 2004, com 93 anos faz essa leitura do órgão mais famoso do corpo.

A alusão as bobinas de fios é para homenagear a infância passada com tapiçarías Aubusson...é como se o coração da gente fosse algo que permanentemente é reciclado, costurado porque é flechado na paixão, nas emoções fortes ou porque foi ferido.

O coração é de borracha também porque podem caber nele MUITAS PESSOAS de maneiras diferentes...

O coração é uma máquina que tem que ser cuidada.

Damien Hirst's  shark suspended in formaldehyde.

People collect many different types of things.  I have never really been a collector, but living with someone who has many types of collections is exciting to me.  I never really thought about starting a collection when I was young, even though I'm sure there were many things I was interested in at the time.  My partner, however, began with hockey cards, books and cowboy figures and has gone on from there.  I like the fact that every so often, he starts a new collection, and even though sometimes it is just a gathering of objects that he'd once collected when he was young, often it is something new that has caught his eye and he begins a new quest to find more.

People think that collecting can be expensive, but of course, with the ease of Ebay, the world is now open to everyone.  You don't have to wait for something to come up at an expensive auction house or sift through boxes at yard sales every Saturday morning. You can now just pop online and type in the object you are looking for and place a bid, if it is to your liking.  There is something for everyone, with every budget and every taste.

In case you are interested in collecting, we have some great books here at the library to help you sort out what might be worth something and what is actually just junk.  Try one of these:

Antiques Roadshow Collectibles by Carol Prisant

Collector's Guide to Buying, Selling and Trading on the Internet by Nancy L. Hix

A lot of wealthy people collect art because not only is it nice to look at, but it usually becomes more valuable as time goes on, especially if you buy something from an artist that later becomes popular.  But what is valuable art anyway?  We've all seen the giant spider sculpture outside the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.  Is this really great art?  You can be the judge.

Maman  by Louise Bourgeois

I started thinking today about collecting and art when I read an article about a book by Don Thompson called "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark" about an American billionaire who purchased this stuffed shark by artist Damien Hirst in 2004.  The article questioned why someone would spend $12 million dollars on an enormous stuffed shark suspended in formaldehyde?  I have no idea either.  You can read an interesting article about this book here. And if you want to know more about the artist and this work, along with other questionable art, you can visit this article.

What do you collect?

When Wessel and I flew into Seattle this past spring to then go on by car to the Olympic Peninsula, we first took one detour -- to the new Olympic Sculpture Park. This amazing green space, open since 2007 and operated by the Seattle Art Museum, is to me one of the most exciting spots in the city. Not only are the landscaping, art, and setting magnificent, admission is free! Below is a little ditty I wrote about it for the Boston Globe travel section "Rave" feature on Sept. 7 (illustrated by one of Wessel's photos). I just noticed that I used the word "impressive" twice. I'm surprised my editors didn't catch that!

Urban art with a green heart

SEATTLE - In an impressive makeover, this forward-thinking city has turned a former fuel-storage and transfer facility into a striking sculpture park.

Opened by the Seattle Art Museum last year, Olympic Sculpture Park, on the northern end of the waterfront, is in a vibrant area to stroll, shop, eat, and admire world-class sculpture. The nine acres of green space that overlook Puget Sound and look out at the Olympic Mountains bring together the best of this city: art and outdoor recreation.

What's most impressive is the way the park melds contemporary landscape design with existing urban infrastructure. A 2,500-foot, Z- shaped route follows the landform, leading from the visitors center and cafe on a hilltop through a series of outdoor "galleries" marked by differing landscaping down to a waterfront recreational path.

Of course the 21 sculptures take center stage, representing such artists as Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, and Ellsworth Kelly.

The most provocative sculpture is Mark Dion's "Neukom Vivarium." The New Bedford, Mass., native and Pennsylvania resident custom-designed a greenhouse that houses a 60-foot-long western hemlock nurse log, whose decay and renewal represents the cycle of life.

IF YOU GO: Olympic Sculpture Park, 2901 Western Ave., 206-654-3100. Opens 30 minutes before sunrise and closes 30 minutes after sunset. Free.

This video would be a hip doorway for students into the works and life of Louise Bourgeois. It's not stuffy, boring, or academic. It makes the audience feel like the viewer at the museum, amid a bustling environment, staring and engaging the art and its hidden crevices. A bonus is that the The Cure song, "Close to Me" is playing in the background. It's basically like a music video. :)

"The Nest"
1994
Steel, 101 x 189 x 158 inches
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Courtesy Louise Bourgeois archive

The collected works of French Artist Louise Bourgeois is currently on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

I went to this show, and slowly, as I spiraled up the Guggenheim architecture, began to connect with the art. Climbing towards the ceiling, I felt that I grew into an imaginary world with painted and shaped wood, smoothly carved marble, oily drawings that expressed a multitude of human feelings and experiences, and hanging pieces and cells with nooks and tunnels for hiding and maneuvering or snuggling.

Everyone experiences art uniquely, and takes away a piece of a fantasy place. Louise Bourgeois's art has filled me with a chamber of thoughts and emotions that have been circulating throughout me, stretching me to wonder who I am as a woman, question what the contours of "letting go" is and means, and examine my inner tensions, varied personality, and desires.

What I particularly like about Bourgeois's work is that it is not all pretty. It draws on the subconscious, our innermost selves- our underworlds. She was influenced by the Surrealists. I think her art may inspire students to create original art and allow their imaginations to wander, and through the process, come to understand themselves greater.

"Femme Volage (Fickle Woman)"
1951
Painted wood, 72 x 17 1/2 x 13 inches
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photo by Allan Fickelman
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

"Cell (Eyes and Mirrors)"
1989-1993
Marble, mirrors, steel and glass, 93 x 83 x 86 inches
Collection Tate Gallery, London
Photo by Peter Bellamy
Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

Louise Bourgeois in 1990 with her marble sculpture 'Eye to Eye' (1970).
Photo by Raimon Ramis.

Les sens sollicités en permanence : avant tout de la lumière de cette ville, toujours très particulière à cause des effets de réflexion des immenses surfaces vitrées des buildings ; puis les sons, la ville de NYC offre une ambiance sonore à nulle autre pareille, à cause des sirènes typiques des pompiers et des policiers d'abord mais aussi à cause une fois de plus de la réverbération des bâtiments et de la largeur des avenues ; les odeurs aussi, car si la bouffe américaine est pour l'essentiel totalement insipide, les odeurs de la rue sont elles multiples et très fortes, avec une dominante quant à l'odeur de viande et de gras cramé des vendeurs ambulants (pour moi, c'est une odeur cancéreuse...) Quant au ressenti de la peau, il est moite à cause de la chaleur et du taux d'humidité à la fin de l'été, et chair de poule à la fois, à cause de l'usage outrancier qui est fait de la climatisation dans le métro, les magasins, les resto, partout !

Je n'oublierai pas le Shake Sack et ses excellents hamburgers (de quoi accepter de faire la queue pendant près d'une heure et demie, et ce à deux reprises), la séance de manicure/pédicure à une heure indécente (oui, il fallait bien ça, m'offrir une pédicure à New York faisait partie d'un de mes fantasmes !). Je n'oublierai pas les verres que nous avons bu à la lumière d'une fin d'après-midi, sur une terrasse au 20ème étage face à la Chrysler Tower, et tous les jardins communautaires que nous avons découvert dans East Village, comme autant de petits paradis verts au milieu de la Grande Ville (et en particulier le 6bc Garden). Bientôt tout ceci sera détaillé dans la page de mes bonnes adresses à New York. On a aussi vu beaucoup plus de vélos que la dernière fois, et notamment beaucoup de single speed, il y a même des pistes cyclables à New York maintenant ! Et pour ceux que ça intéresse, une petite vidéo ici...

Je n'oublierai pas non plus les expos que nous avons vues, les belles choses découvertes et d'autres plus déconcertantes.

Jeff Koons sur le toit du Met'

Louise Bourgeois au Guggenheim

Ugo Rondinone sur la façade du New Museum

(comme un écho au Cry Me a River de l'avenue Magenta...)

Jamais deux sans trois, j'espère bien que je retournerai encore une 4ème, 5ème... fois à New York. Pour le reste, pour en voir plus, il faudra attendre que j'ai le temps de faire un petit diaporama et que je le mette en ligne.Et dans un tout autre registre, j'aurais profité de ce voyage, d'une longue translation en avion, pour visionner le film de Philippe Claudel, Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, l'histoire de deux soeurs, l'histoire d'une mère, tout ça m'a beaucoup touchée, tant par sa pudeur et sa simplicité, que par la force des sentiments que cela a suscité en moi, ouaouh, quelle baffe ! Le même genre de sentiments que lorsque j'ai lu son Rapport de Brodeck.

Bonne rentrée à tous !

Louise Bourgeois was born on December 25, 1911, in Paris. As a teenager, Bourgeois assisted her parents in their tapestry-restoration business, making drawings that indicated to the weavers the repairs to be made. In 1932, she entered the Sorbonne to study mathematics, but abandoned that discipline for art. In the mid- to late 1930s, she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Académie de la Grande-Chaumière, École du Louvre, Atelier Fernand Léger, and other Parisian schools. In 1938, Bourgeois married an American, the art historian Robert Goldwater, and moved to New York. There, she studied for two years at the Art Students League and was soon participating in print exhibitions.

After moving to a new apartment in 1941, Bourgeois began to make large wood sculptures on the roof of her building. In 1945, her first solo show, comprised of twelve paintings, was held at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York and her work was first included in the Whitney Annual (later the Whitney Biennial). In the mid- to late 1940s, she worked at Stanley William Hayter's printshop, Atelier 17, where she met Le Corbusier, Joan Miró, and other Europeans exiled by World War II. In 1949, she exhibited works from her Personage series in the first show of her sculpture, at Peridot Gallery in New York.

In 1951, Bourgeois became an American citizen. Continuing her mode of abstracted figuration instilled with psychological and symbolic content, she remained stylistically distinct from New York School developments. She did, however, join American Abstract Artists in 1954. In the 1960s, she taught in public schools and at Brooklyn College and Pratt Institute in New York. She would continue to teach at colleges and universities during the following decade. In the late 1960s, Bourgeois's imagery became more explicitly sexual as she explored the relationship between men and women and the emotional impact of her troubled childhood (her father had had a ten-year affair with her governess). From 1967 until 1972, she made trips to Pietrasanta, Italy, to work in marble.

With the rise of feminism and the art world's new pluralism, her work found a wider audience. In the 1970s, she began to do Performance [more] pieces—among them A Banquet/A Fashion Show of Body Parts (1978), in which she wrapped art historians and students in white drapery with sewn-in anatomical forms—and expanded the scale of her three-dimensional work to large environments.

The first retrospective of Bourgeois's work was organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1982–83), and her first European retrospective was assembled by the Frankfurter Kunstverein (1989). Bourgeois was selected to be the American representative to the 1993 Venice Biennale. Her collected writings were published in 1998. In 2000, three thirty-foot-high towers by Bourgeois, commissioned by the Tate Modern in London—I Do, I Undo, and I Redo—were featured in that museum's inaugural exhibition. Many of her large-scale works have been exhibited as public art, including three spider sculptures installed at Rockefeller Center in New York in 2001 under the aegis of the Public Art Fund.

Bourgeois's achievements have been recognized with, among other honors, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973), membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1981), a grand prize in sculpture from the French Ministry of Culture (1991), and the National Medal of Arts (1997). Bourgeois lives and works in Manhattan.

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_21.html

Portrait Louise Bourgeois von Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Louise Bourgeois Website: Ralph Ueltzhoeffer (www.ueltzhoeffer.de).

jusqu'au 28 septembre 2008

>>> exposition Louise Bourgeois

E ela o protegia, pois sabia como o mundo é triste e malvado.

Ele tinha uma naturaza tranqüila e era bem inteligente, mas não estava interessado em ser amado e protegido, pois ele estava interessado em outra coisa.

Conseqüentemente, ainda jovem, ele bateu a porta e nunca mais voltou.

Um dia, ela morreu, mas ele nunca ficou sabendo."

(Louise Bourgeois)

O trabalho acima faz parte de uma série de nove gravuras (acompanhadas por pequenos textos) da artista francesa radicada nos Estados Unidos Louise Bourgeois, em exposição na mostra "The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock", em cartaz no British Museum, até 7 de setembro.

A exibição traça um panorama da gravura produzida nos EUA entre 1900 e 1960, com 147 trabalhos de 74 artistas, entre eles John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Josef Albers, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning e Jackson Pollock, além de Bourgeois. As obras fazem parte do acervo do museu, considerado um dos melhores do mundo em gravura americana desse período, marcado pela chegada do modernismo ao país, o jazz, a grande depressão, o crescimento do fascismo na Europa e a Segunda Guerra. A entrada é franca.

Guggenheim Museum, New York

Louise Bourgeois
Full-career retrospective
Exhibition > 28 September 2008






Louise Bourgeois, a full-career retrospective of one of the most important artists of our time, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Organized by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in association with Tate Modern, London, and Centre Pompidou, Paris, the exhibition fills the Guggenheim’s entire Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda and an adjacent gallery, making it the most comprehensive examination to date of Bourgeois’s long and distinguished career.

Louise Bourgeois in 1990 with her marble sculpture Eye to Eye (1970).
Photo: Raimon Ramis
© Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois encompasses representative selections from all of the major phases of the artist’s career. Visitors are greeted in the museum’s rotunda by one of Bourgeois’ iconic spider sculptures, Spider Couple, 2003, and a pair of hanging aluminium works dating from 2004 that draw on another of her signature motifs, the spiral.

Appropriately, this recurring form in the artist’s iconography finds a corollary in the unique structure of the Guggenheim’s spiralling ramps, on which the works are arranged along predominantly chronological lines. Throughout the exhibition, the works on paper that are an integral and constant element of Bourgeois’ creative process are juxtaposed with her sculptural works.

The main body of the exhibition begins with paintings and drawings dating from the mid-1940s that depict female bodies half eclipsed in architectural structures – a vision of the “femme maison” whose identity is literally subsumed by the responsibilities and constrictions of the domestic role. These works are interspersed by an installation of Bourgeois’ Personnages in the High Gallery.
These anthropomorphic wooden totems, created as surrogates for the artist’s former life in France, are placed in staggered relational groupings, echoing their original installation in a series of solo exhibitions at the Peridot Gallery in New York between 1949 and 1953.

Continuing up the ramps, the transitional multi-part sculpture The Blind Leading the Blind, 1947-49, introduces smaller groupings of Personnages. These slightly later works diverge from monolithic rigidity in favor of multiple segments threaded onto a central rod, such as Femme Volage, 1951, or the stacked columns of blocks that characterize Memling Dawn, 1951.

Louise Bourgeois
The Blind Leading the Blind, 1947-1949
Wood, painted pink
70 3/8 x 96 7/8 x 17 3/8”; 178.7 x 246 x 44.1 cm
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington USA)
© Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois
Cumul I, 1968
Marble, wood plinth
20 1/16 x 50 x 48 1/16 inches (51 x 127 x 122 cm)
Fonds National d’art contemporain
Attribution au Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou en 1976
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle
© Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois
PINK DAYS AND BLUE DAYS, 1997
Steel, fabric, bone, wood, glass, rubber and mixed media
Overall: 117 x 87 x 87 inches (297.2 x 221 x 221 cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art
97.101a-s
© Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois
COUPLE IV, 1997
Fabric, leather, stainless steel and plastic
20 x 65 x 30 1/2”; 50.8 x 165.1 x 77.4 cm.
Wood and glass Victorian vitrine: 72 x 82 x 43”; 182.9 x 208.3 x 109.2 cm.
Courtesy Cheim & Read, Galerie Karsten Greve, and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Christopher Burke
© Louise Bourgeois

Around 1960 Bourgeois began to exploit the sculptural possibilities of a new repertoire of malleable materials such as plaster, latex, and resin, creating amorphous organic forms that evoke the human body and natural topographies. Works in this section of the exhibition such as Lair, 1962, and Fée Couturière, 1963, present roughly textured enclosed structures, suggesting both protective nests and sinister traps.

This characteristic ambiguity of reference is extended in the limp, indeterminate biomorphic forms of such seminal works as Janus Fleuri, 1968 and Filette, 1968, as well as in Bourgeois’ first major environmental sculpture, The Destruction of the Father, 1974 – a grisly evocation of a cannibalistic family meal. The exhibition continues with a broad selection of sculptures executed primarily in marble and bronze, in which the pliable softness of Bourgeois’ formal vocabulary is offset by the hard inflexibility of these traditional mediums. Many of these works are abstractions formed from the smooth, globular protuberances that the artist refers to as Cumuls (“clouds”). Others, such as the hanging bronze, Arch of Hysteria, 1993, render anatomical form with a new verisimilitude. An adjacent gallery displays Confrontation, 1978 – a tableaux of latex forms ringed by wooden barriers that are shown alongside archival footage of the performance that accompanied the piece when it was first exhibited.

The museum’s final ramps are devoted primarily to Bourgeois’ Cells – the large-scale enclosed installations that the artist produced throughout the 1990s. Incorporating both found or personal objects and carved sculptures within structures that are simultaneously claustrophobic prisons and shielding cloisters, these complex assemblages are vessels for deeply autobiographical, psychological narratives. The exhibition culminates with a selection of recent fabric-based sculptures. In these unsettling works, stuffed heads, torsos and intertwined figures – some of which are stitched from the Bourgeois’ own clothes and household linens – enact a primal drama of sexual and familial relationships.

Installation view at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008

Installation view of Spider Couple, Untitled, and Untitled at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008
© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York
Photo by David Heald

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue providing an overview of Bourgeois’ life and work. Taking the form of an A-Z glossary, the catalogue encompasses relevant themes, individual works, select quotations, and succinct essays, all interspersed with examples of the artist’s own writings. It also includes an illustrated biography and a full chronology. Published by Tate Publishing, the hard cover edition is distributed through Rizzoli at a cost of $45 in soft cover and $65 in hard cover. Both editions are for purchase the Guggenheim Museum store.

In conjunction with the major retrospective of Louise Bourgeois, the Guggenheim’s Sackler Center for Arts Education presents through September 12 “A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois, an exhibition of photographs and diaries from the artist’s archives.

Read more here

Text © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Images © All rights reserved







Links

• Guggenheim Museum, New York
• Confrontation [video documenting the installation of Confrontation in the Guggenheim Museum]
• A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois - Exhibition at the Sackler Center > 12 September 2008











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]]> http://eaobjets.wordpress.com/?p=2711 Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:53:35 +0000 Espaces Arts & Objets http://eaobjets.fr.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/a-life-in-pictures-louise-bourgeois-exhibition-at-the-guggenheim/






Guggenheim Museum, New York

A life in pictures : Louise Bourgeois
Exhibition > 12 September 2008






A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois, an exhibition of photographs, diaries, and ephemera from the artist’s personal archive, is on view at the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum through September 12, 2008.

This biographical exhibition is unique to the Guggenheim’s presentation of the major retrospective Louise Bourgeois organized by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in association with Tate Modern, London, and Centre Pompidou, Paris, which is on view in the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda and an adjacent gallery through September 28, 2008.







Louise Bourgeois in 2003.
Photo: Nanda Lanfranco
© All rights reserved





For Louise Bourgeois, art and life are inextricably linked. Although her complex, allusive work attains a universal significance, she has spoken of the autobiographical subtext that underpins her unique symbolic language. A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois offers an opportunity to visually trace the personal narratives that have informed the artist’s work throughout the past seven decades of her extensive career. Born in Paris in 1911, Bourgeois grew up in provincial France, assisting with the family’s tapestry restoration business before immigrating to New York in 1938. “Everything I do,” she has explained, “was inspired by my early life.” Viscerally present in her art is the psychic trauma of her mother’s early death, her father’s betrayal of the family through his 10-year affair with their live-in English tutor, and her overlapping roles of student, daughter, wife, mother and artist.

A Life in Pictures: Louise Bourgeois illuminates the artist’s rich life and career through a chronological display of over 75 photographs taken by her family and by fellow artists and friends such as Brassaï, Peter Moore, Inge Morath, and Baird Jones. Snapshots of Bourgeois -- in France as a child, in the studio among her iconic works, at home at her famed Sunday salons, or in the company of great artists -- are shown alongside her identification cards and passports. The artist’s original diaries, which she has kept assiduously since 1923, offer poems, sketches and daily musings, and often indicate the tensions between rage, fear of abandonment, and guilt she has suffered since childhood—tensions, however, that she has been able to channel and release through her art. Included in the presentation are 10 original invitations dating from 1945 to 1978, announcing some of Bourgeois’s New York exhibitions.

These selections from the artist’s archive contextualize the more than 150 works on view in the accompanying retrospective, such as Bourgeois’s early Femme Maison drawings and paintings of the 1940s, through the large-scale enclosed installations created in the 1990s known as Cells, to her more recent soft sculptures created from stitched fabric.







Louise Bourgeois photographed by Brassai at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière in Paris in 1937.
Photo: Louise Bourgeois Archive
© All rights reserved





Louise Bourgeois and Andy Warhol in 1987 in front of her 1947 painting called 1932.
Photo: Baird Jones
© All rights reserved





Louise Bourgeois working on her mixed media sculpture entitled CONFRONTATION in 1978.
Photo: Inge Morath
© All rights reserved





Louise Bourgeois seated in her Chelsea home in 1999 with THREE HORIZONTALS.
Photo: Elfie Semotan
© All rights reserved










Text © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Images © All rights reserved







Links

• Guggenheim Museum, New York
• More about the exhibition A Life in Pictures
• About the Sackler Center
• Louise Bourgeois – Full-career retrospective at The Guggenheim > 28 September 2008











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Stampfli & Turci Art Dealers - Espaces Arts & Objets








]]> http://icahabiba.wordpress.com/?p=10 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:39:59 +0000 frederica cassis http://icahabiba.fr.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/louise-bourgeois-at-her-92/ Now she is 97 years old! I saw her "maman" in Tokyo....marvellous



"Maman" by L.B homenage `a sa vrai maman qui réparait les tapisseries Aubussons



]]> http://steprobin.wordpress.com/?p=473 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:25:37 +0000 robinkonstabaris http://steprobin.fr.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/ontario-ottawa-and-quebec-gatineau-june-30-to-july-3/

 

[caption id="attachment_475" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="A Capital Encounter with a Dashing Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman"][/caption]

 

 

It's Canada Day up Canada Way on the first day of July.

And we're shouting hooray up Canada Way when the maple leaf flies high.

Where the silver jets from East to West are streaming through our skies.

We'll be shouting hooray up Canada Way when the great parade goes by.

 

[caption id="attachment_476" align="alignright" width="240" caption="A Canadian Institution"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

Chorus:

Oh Canada, standing tall together,

We'll raise our hands and hail our flag

The maple leaf forever.

 

It's Canada Day up Canada Way on the coast of Labrador.

And we're shouting hooray up Canada Way on the white Pacific shore.

People everywhere have a song to share on Canada's holiday.

From P. E. Island to the sunny south to the North Pole far away.

Chorus...

 It's Canada Day up Canada Way on the long cold winters done.

And we're shouting hooray up Canada Way for the great days yet to come.

Where maple trees grow maple leaves when the Northern sun is high.

We're Canadians and we're born again on the first day of July.

Chorus...

 It's Canada Day up Canada Way from the lakes to the prairies wide.

And we're shouting hooray up Canada Way on the St. Lawrence river side.

People everywhere have a song to share on Canada's holiday.

From P. E. Island to the sunny south to the North Pole far away.

·                    Canada Day Song by Stompin’ Tom Conners

(If reading the song makes you want to hear it, here’s someone else’s Canada Day video on YouTube that uses it).

[caption id="attachment_501" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="Library on Parliament Hill"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_477" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A House made of Straw"][/caption]

I had noticed we would be near Ottawa around July 1^st, and when you’re on a cross-Canada adventure, what better place to spend Canada day in than Canada’s capital city? One thing about a lot of Canadian cities is that they have a body of water in the middle, but instead of being one city it’s a different city on each side. Ottawa is like that, but further complicated by the other side, Gatineau, being in Quebec. We came to see Ottawa but we were staying with our friends Liz and Ed’s in Gatineau. Liz and Ed built a straw bale house----a house made of straw! They also put in a crazy masonry fireplace in the middle. The walls of the house are so thick and the fireplace so efficient that most days they only have to make one small fire in the morning to keep the house warm, even in winter, and they live in Quebec.

[caption id="attachment_479" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="The National Gallery Cafe"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_478" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Downpour Even a Vancouverite Couldn't Ignore"][/caption]

 Of course Ottawa has many sights of historical and national interest, as well as being a very beautiful city in it’s own right. Step and I decided to split up for a couple of hours for a bit of alone time. I spent about half of it looking at a book about clowns in the National Gallery (it was like a train wreck---I just couldn’t look away), and the rest wandering around Parliament Hill looking at statues and the Rideau Canal locks and the preparations for the big celebration. When it was time to go meet Step I got a bit lost and then got caught in a raging torrential downpour. Being from Vancouver, I at first carried on as if nothing was happening, even when I became soaked like I had gone in a shower, and my insoles were so wet the glue came off and the top bit slid around on the bottom bit, but finally I got worried for the camera and stood under a bridge until it eased up.

[caption id="attachment_481" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A Delicious Vegan Green Papaya Salad"][/caption]

 When I met Step I was too wet to sit down anywhere so we had to go back to the van so I could change. We called Liz and asked where we could get some hippie food, but the Green Door restaurant was closed when we got there. By this point in our travels we had figured out to find some healthy good freak food the person to ask is the clerk at the health supplement store, and that was how we found The Sacred Garden, a vegan Thai restaurant serving up sizzling hot faux meat and tofu stirfries and a killer green papaya salad (my Thai favourite) that somehow doesn’t have fish sauce yet still tastes great. If you’re ever in Ottawa, I recommend it.

[caption id="attachment_483" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hat Envy"][/caption]

The next day was the big day, Canada Day! Liz and Ed have two children, Maya and Alex, so they went to the Gatineau side of the celebrations which had more kid’s stuff. Step and I went to the Parliament Hill side (weirdly, the day got so packed with stuff we got near The Hill but never quite made it on). At first the enormous crowds were kind of weirding Step out but after we watched a break dancing demo he got more into the spirit of things. We both liked the giant chicken BBQ in Maple Hill Park, which is just under the Parliament buildings, so much that we ate there twice, and I had a giant fresh lemonade. A lot of people were dressed in red and white. I really liked the hat where it’s just a giant felt maple leaf on your head but I didn’t see anyone selling any.

[caption id="attachment_482" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="Giant Chicken BBQ"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_484" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Funny Bum"][/caption]

The permanent collection at the National Gallery is free on Canada Day, so even though it was crowded we went in. The elevator man told us to check out room 213 because it has over 4,000,000 dollars worth of expressionist art in it, and all the way there I kept thinking maybe it would just be better to put 4,000,000 dollars in a big glass box for people to look at. I guess that would be interesting once but a Braque you can look at over and over again. We knew we would be back at the Gallery the next day so we only checked out a portion of the collection. (I did see this painting shown here which has a really weird bum in it).

[caption id="attachment_485" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The People's Orchestra"][/caption]

We needed to go to the Lord Elgin Hotel to meet with Step’s distant cousin Ruth and her family, and on the way there we saw the People’s Orchestra playing “I Dream of Jeannie”. First of all, I LOVE the People’s Orchestra. When I lived on 3^rd Avenue in Vancouver the local People’s Orchestra would go by on random occasions, and it was always a thrill. Second of all, the fact they were playing “I Dream of Jeannie” and that I had won at the “I Dream of Jeannie” slot machine was not lost on me. It obviously has weighty significance, but what? If anyone has any insight, let me know. Step had his recorder so he was able to record some of their playing.

[caption id="attachment_486" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Glenn Gould Sculpture by Ruth"][/caption]

 Ruth’s husband Mark is an inventor and Ruth is a bronze sculpture artist who does national commissions and stuff, so you’ve probably seen some of her work. She has a lot of sparkle and we really enjoyed our visit at the Lord Elgin Hotel. I ordered a teaser plate of appetizers that I thought was really funny. It was little puff pastries and breaded scallops with chutney and the like but it was all kind of clunky on the plate, as if it were trying to be Nouvelle Cuisine but too big. I guess I’m a bit of a rube ‘cause Step explained that it was the Old School Way. When you live in Vancouver you only have 150 years of history so there’s just no tradition.

 

It turned out the Ruth family had come to Canada Day by accident, because Ruth had to discuss a commission at the National Arts Centre and her son had a soccer game. But then it turned out the soccer game was the next weekend----d’oh! We went with them to a kind of sampler concert at the Arts Centre, with an orchestra and a huge choir and stuff. Step doesn’t enjoy that kind of music as much but I loved it, and it was my favourite thing of Canada Day.

[caption id="attachment_490" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Canada Day Garbage Pile"][/caption]

When we got out it had turned dark and so had the spirit of the day. Families and older people had gone home mostly and it was still crowded but with hard-core party people who were waiting for the fire works and the all night bars and nightclubs to get going. We found a restaurant in the market area where we were able to get some surprisingly good whole wheat pasta, and we left as the fireworks started. It was kind of fun and surreal to be walking around the empty outlying streets with the echoes of the fireworks booming around us.

 

[caption id="attachment_492" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="Maman by Louise Bourgeois"][/caption]

The next day we returned to the National Gallery and saw a really good show : 1930’s: The New Man. It was all art made in the time of and in response to the rise of Fascism in Europe. The show was well put together and told a story of something we need to watch out for, especially in these days when the danger seems to have been forgotten by some of Canada’s neighbours, and some Canadians themselves.

 

[caption id="attachment_493" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Image by Edward Burtynsky"][/caption]

We also checked out this really great show that was actually from the Museum of Contemporary Photography (they’re having renos) that was all art about environment and climate change. We had seen that movie “Manufactured Landscapes” about the work of Edward Burtynsky (highly recommended, but only on the big screen), and some of his pieces were in it as well as others, so that was cool. It’s kind of wild that destruction can be so beautiful yet chilling----sort of like Burlington Street.

 

Another great thing about the National Gallery is the crazy Giant Spider Sculpture outside, which I photographed in many conditions----cloudy, sunny, crowded and alone.

 

[caption id="attachment_494" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Heavily Guarded American Embassy"][/caption]

 

It’s kind of wild walking around in Ottawa---there’s a lot of history like the National Mint and the Prime Minister’s House at 24 Sussex Drive. The Governer  General’s House and grounds is right across the street and a lot bigger, because they are the official yet figurehead Leader of the Nation. (The grounds were open to the public while we were there but we didn’t go). There are also all sorts of Embassies. The American one was the freakiest because it is so heavily gaurded and barricaded. It mad me shivery and not in a good way (see 1930’s: The New Man).

Ottawa has a pretty good market district, called ByWard Market, where we were able to get some excellent spicy noodles. I appreciated the many fresh food stands, particularly the ones which labeled wether the produce was local or not. I wish this was a practice which was more widespread. We were still unable to get a really good coffee but you can't have everything.

[caption id="attachment_498" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="ByWard Market"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_495" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Cat Shelter on Parliament Hill"][/caption]

A walk along the river under Parliament Hill is a must, of course, and we climbed a really long staircase from there to The Hill. Not everyone knows that there is a stray cat shelter behind the parliament buildings that has been there for years. When we visited a few cats were napping in the shade and a raccoon was digging into their crunchies. What can you do? Raccoons have to eat, too.

 

 

[caption id="attachment_497" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="Mountie photographs Tourists"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_499" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Rideau Canal and Chateau Laurier"][/caption]

The most purest Canadian Moment Ever happened in front of the Tomb of the Unkonwn Soldier, which is in front of the Parliament Buildings. We were walking along when we spotted a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman in full uniform taking pictures of some tourists! The quick witted Step took a picture of the Mountie taking pictures of tourists, and the  Mountie turned to us and started posing for all sorts of pictures with us. Then he regailed us with many stories! He was part of the secret service so he had escorted many Prime Ministers in his time and had inside information on what they were like. Pierre Trudeau was of course a favourite (come back, Trudeau!) and described as a down-to-earth sort of fellow, which came as no surprise. Brian Mulroney was phoney balogna (also no surprise). He liked Paul Martin, who encouraged him to go swimming in his pool. When the Mountie said he didn’t think his boss would like that Paul Martin replied “I’m your boss!”. He obviously couldn’t say anything about the current administration, but I think we can guess. He told us the Prime Minister of France had just arrived to the Chateau Laurier, which explained all the shiny black cars and guys standing around in suits apparently doing nothing.

[caption id="attachment_500" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Robin Eats a Lobster"][/caption]

Step popped into Moores for a Monkey Suit fitting and afterwards I ate a whole lobster. Later we finally got in a visit with Ed and Liz. They had both had a crazy busy schedule to whole time we were there because stuff was going down at their kids school and Liz is on the board, so it was nice to have some minutes.

 

[caption id="attachment_503" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="No Time for the Glenn Gould Exhibit"][/caption]

 

The next day we tried to go for a quickie at the Museum of Civilisation in Gatineau because there was a show about Glenn Gould Step was particularly interested in, but when we got there there was a very, very long line up to pay admission. The problem was we had a goal to get to Montreal in time tom meet up with my friend Alain and go the the Real Tuesday Weld show at 530 (it was part of the Jazz Festval). We figured we needed to be on the road by 2 and if we waited in line we would only have ½ hour for the whole museum, so instead we had a very nice lunch at the Museum Restaurant and wandered a bit in the Zen Garden. It was nice but it was no Glenn Gould show. The irony was we got caught in traffic in the outskirts of Montreal so we missed the Real Tuesday Weld show anyway.

 

[caption id="attachment_504" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="The Museum of Civilisation"][/caption]

 

 

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