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| Louise Bourgeois, Cell (The Last Climb), 2008 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © Louise Bourgeois Trust. Photo © National Gallery of Canada |
Summer Programming at MOCCA
Sarah Letovsky
As my final gallery review for loop’s blog, I chose MOCCA - the Museum of
Contemporary Canadian Art, a public hotspot for contemporary art in Toronto. It’s pay what you can, and located right in
the heart of Queen West, making it the perfect place to drop in and see some
art when you’re in the mood. Summer can often be a slower season for art, but
MOCCA’s current shows are some of the most exciting that I’ve seen this year: a
retrospective of Louise Bourgeois visiting from the National Gallery, “Three
Known Points” by David Armstrong Six, and “Dancing with Che: Enter Through the
Gift Shop” by Barbara Astman.
Astman’s work is a collection of Che-related paraphernalia displayed in a gift
shop setting, as if they were retail objects: postcards, t-shirts, tote bags -
all with Che’s image on them. They have all the familiarity of tchotchkes but
keep their distance as objects for contemplation rather than consumption. “Dancing
with Che” is an intriguing comment on the commercialization of political
figures and re-appropriation of cultural icons. David Armstrong Six’s “Three
Known Points” is also an interesting exhibition; a collection of dynamic,
freestanding sculptures each named after various vocations - The Changling,
The Janitor, The Mole - all created by the Montreal artist during a 2012
residency in Berlin.
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| Barbara Astman, Dancing with Che: Enter Through The Gift Shop (detail), 2011. Courtesy of the Corkin Gallery. Photo: Jennifer Rose Sciarrino |
What I’ve really come to see, though, is “Louise Bourgeois 1911-2010”. It’s
a hard enough task trying to create a retrospective for an artist that has had
such a prolific and influential career - but MOCCA has done an excellent job in
borrowing work from the National Gallery for a show that both encompasses the
breadth of her work, and also the emotional framework that Bourgeois was
operating under after leaving her family and friends in Europe and moving to
New York in the late thirties. It’s a mixed show, as was Bourgeois’ career, but
artfully chosen; a collection of organic, elegant ink drawings from the 1950s,
gouache paintings from 2007, a large sculpture created from a staircase rescued
from her Brooklyn studio.
The selection of work exhibits Bourgeois’ trademark sexual overtones as well
as the artist’s not-so-subtle references to female genetalia. A group of
sculptures from her Echo series (2007) are a particularly fitting
example of this. They stand in one corner - large, voluptuous, bronze castings
of her discarded clothing that have been painted a chalky white. But it’s
really Bourgeois’ Personnages (1946-1955) that steal the show, a series
of delicate statues punctuating the room like totems. Each is created from a
different material or painted in a different colour, and they’re all unique and
odd. Together they feel like a lonely crowd; the more you look at them, the
more they become anthropomorphic, and seem to embody a spirit and their own
personality. There’s a sense of melancholy and nostalgia to these Personnages,
the sadness that comes from looking back on relationships and people you once
knew and lost.
The show focuses on work that reflected Bourgeois’ own feelings of loss and
nostalgia; but the chosen works also capture a sense of peace, understanding,
and finality. As a retrospective, it’s a fitting and poignant goodbye to a
beloved artist.
