Louise Bourgeois's 'Cells' Unite at Guggenheim Bilbao

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents 'Strutture dell’esistenza: le Cellule', a retrospective uniting 28 of Louise Bourgeois's cell environments for the first time. Curated by Julienne Lorz, Petra Joos, and Jerry Gorovoy (Bourgeois's longtime assistant), the exhibition also features her two-dimensional works—paintings, drawings, and prints—spanning seven decades. Bourgeois, born in Paris in 1911, moved to New York after marrying art historian Robert Goldwater, with whom she had three children. Her practice evolved from painting to sculpture in the mid-1940s; her father's death in 1951 triggered a depression leading to nearly thirty years of psychoanalysis, deeply influencing her art. The cells—enclosures made from industrial nets, found furniture, perfume bottles, doors, windows, clothing, and mirrors—explore memory, trauma, and the unconscious. The exhibition includes educational programs and special tours. After its Bilbao run (until September 4, 2016), Tate Modern director Frances Morris has dedicated an entire gallery to Bourgeois.