For the past several weeks, since the Louise Bourgeois survey opened at the Hirshhorn, I have been anxious to see her work again in person. This is one artist with whose work I have a real connection because of my visit to the attic of Dia:Beacon many years ago, where some of her most important pieces are permanently installed. During that visit, I had spent quite a long time on the main level, enjoying the beautiful open, airy, naturally lit spaces and the large open format of the galleries. Paintings and sculpture by Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt - these were pieces that we took in quite easily and with much joy.But then, I climbed up the staircase to the small, cramped rooms of the attic, without knowing what awaited me (I must have neglected to read our guidebook). And I'll never forget the sight that I came face to face with -- Bourgeois' Spider. I had seen other versions of this bronzed sculpture at SFMOMA, but this one was different -- she was crouching over a cage (which is referred to as a "cell"), inside of which stood a single empty chair. It was an immediate reaction of both sheer terror and shock. In that dark attic, standing in front of what looked like a manifestation of someone's worst nightmare, I felt completely displaced and uneasy.
But at the same time, and as has been widely written about with regard to Bourgeois' Spiders, there was another sensibility that came over me as I continued to stand there. A sense that perhaps - somehow - this creature was carefully guarding and protecting whatever lied beneath her in that cage. Perhaps she was not a predator, but in fact a protector. But a protector of what? And who (or what) resided in that chair? Was this truly a cell - a prison - or a safe haven? Or was it a repository of the unknown, the subconscious, our fears and nightmares? These possibilities are totally ambivalent, and there is no easy answer. And I believe that within this dilemma rests the mind and soul of the viewer, left to determine which one makes the most sense.
The experience of viewing this particular work was definitely a journey of the mind and soul, and drives at the very heart of my perspective about art -- that the experience of art is found in the place (or displacement) where the viewer resides - when confronted by something disturbing, shocking, or intensely beautiful, the viewer is first stunned into stillness and contemplation, and then into intellectual movement, as the viewer tries to figure out their relationship with and response to that particular work. Much of these ideas are grounded in what I studied, read, and wrote about in graduate school and I'm dying to get out my old term papers and start writing again. There is so much to say. But in the meantime, a trip to the Hirshhorn is long overdue, and I can't wait to see if a Spider awaits me there.
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