Sunday, February 21, 2010

Louise Bourgeois



It's been a difficult winter, back to back snowstorms without a break from the bitter cold have kept 3' of snow on the landscape and it's just now melting. In the evening half light the white surface glistens as if it were polished marble. I love thinking I live in a great stone quarry garden. The snow piles softened by wind blast resemble modern sculpture and sometimes I recognize forms I've moved, made or imagined.




The great Artist Louise Bourgeois has created a body of work in a variety of materials including marbles of different colors, especially beautiful white stones. This past year I have been involved in two projects installing several of these sculptures: an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and another for a private collector in Washington DC. These pieces were carved from blocks and left intact as if they had just been cut and lifted from the quarry. You can see the chisel and tooling marks left on the sides of the stone. Her polished forms escape from the top.

In DC, as part of a larger project, a private collector asked if I could de-install, help transport and re-install 2 stone sculptures from their old to new house. The heaviest piece was about 3000 lbs. It was a busy production, we packed them on pallets, loaded the pallets into an air ride box truck, delivered same day to the new residence where we transferred the load onto a small crane truck, which rigged the the pallets to the back porch and our access door to the inside space. The next day we installed them. In the morning when we returned to work on their other pieces, I met the client who asked that they be moved. " The sculpture didn't feel right where they were in the new space." I smiled and said of course I could. When the Art speaks, I try to respond.







































*video music excerpt: " Just Us Too." Mack on bass, Ben Gage on guitar.

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