Sun. March 2 

Last call!  Louise Bourgeois, at 95, is one of the most prolific artists of our time. And she’s not done yet.  Bourgeois has pursued art for more than 60 years – through sketchings, paintings, and, primarily, sculpture. She has made objets d’art out of bronze, wood and steel, as well out of her own clothing and discarded items, some found while foraging the streets and dumpsters of New York City. Take “Cell (Hands and Mirror).” It’s one of the more intriguing works at the “Bourgeois in Boston” exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, which is up through March 2.  Twelve years ago, Bourgeois used five “found” light blue electrical panels, and assembled them as a pentagon.  If you peer down inside you’ll find a pair of intertwined, exquisitely carved human hands on a pink marble table, and mirrors reflecting multiple images of those hands.
    “They’re little vignettes,” said the show’s curator Emily Moore Brouillet. “She’s taking a memory and making it physical. You’re outside looking in. It’s about her and us. There are always multiple possibilities.” This is true of much of Bourgeois’ work: The more you look, the more you ponder, wonder. There are ten sculptures – including a gigantic spider (“the showstopper” says Brouillet)  - and one painting in the exhibit, which is up through March 2, 2008. There is also a series of works on paper, which will change every few months. The art, done from 1947 to 2000, is on loan from Boston area museums and collectors.
       The ICA has two big Bourgeois fans. There is Board of Trustees member and collector Barbara Lee, who contributed about half the exhibit, and museum director Jill Medvedow, who was Bourgeois’ assistant while in graduate school.
     The reason for this show?  “We wanted to highlight the work of one our most influential living artists, an artist who has created a powerful and varied body of work over the past 60 years,” said Brouillet.

  Bourgeois likes ambiguity and a degree of mystery. One of her famous quotes is: “I am not what I look like. I am my work.”
     “I am interested in subtleties and nuance,” Bourgeois said in an e-mail interview. “When I was younger, I saw things in terms of black and white. Now, I am interested in shades of gray, There is a complexity in everything and I want to express that.”
   Asked about the arc of her career, she said, “I don’t see my career as an arc, but rather as a spiral. I have been consistent and have eternally explored the same problems and themes.’’ Bourgeois elects not to select any particular high point of her career. “I’m exclusively interested in the piece that I am working on now,” she said. “Once a work is done, I move on.”
     
     Two of the major themes of her career are spiders and spirals. “The spiral is a shape that has always intrigued me,” said Bourgeois. “Spirals have continuity and a direction. The question is: Does it spiral in, tightening up, or is it spiraling out and opening up?” Brouillet said that spiders have a negative image in many people’s minds, and Bourgeois wanted to “rehabilitate” that image.
     “The spider is an ode to my mother, who was my protector,” said Bourgeois, who began sketching spiders in 1947. (Her mother died in 1932; Bourgeois nursed her through a long illness.) “My mother was a tapestry woman and like a spider was a weaver.” … “Her childhood has been a real source of inspiration and it’s something she’s still exploring at the age of 95,” said Brouillet, “which is fascinating.”
     Indeed, Bourgeois has spent most of her time creating sculptures, trying to wrest small truths out of life – hers and ours. These days, Bourgeois primarily works on small-scale stitchings – or “sculptures out of my clothes,” as she called them. “They have a history and a smell,” she said, “and hold the keys to memories, which are important to me.” There’s a poignant, untitled cloth sculpture at the ICA: a raggedy black-clad soldier with an artificial leg, encased in a glass box. “My amputated figures, (with) crutches and prosthetics are symbols for how difficult life is,” said Bourgeois. “They symbolize that despite these difficulties and handicaps we go on.”
     Said Brouillet:  “Art is essential for getting through the day for her. It must be therapeutic. Without it, she wouldn’t still be alive.” (A longer version of this piece appears in the Where GuestBook Boston. which you'll find in finer hotels about town.)

The ICA is open 10-5 every day except Thursday when it's open until 9, and free. Tickets on other days: $12.

100 Northern Ave., 617-478-3103  www.icaboston.org