Upstairs, viewers will encounter important yet seldom seen works such as Clouds and Caverns 1982-89 and the fabric suite The Waiting Hours 2007. Downstairs, viewers will encounter works such as Arch of Hysteria 1993 and the immense mirror sculpture that gives the exhibition its name, alongside projections of the artist’s psychoanalytic writings.
Exhibition curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales head curator of international art, Justin Paton said: ‘Visitors are invited to join us on an emotional journey through the highs and lows, intensities and polarities, memories and fantasies of the artist. Bourgeois is an artist of extremes, of opposed yet intertwined impulses – obsessed with the complicated and contradictory truth of our feelings towards ourselves and others.’
‘Her work maintained – and still delivers – a charge of intimacy, urgency and piercing peculiarity. Far from being a distant and admirable monument, Bourgeois comes to us as a contemporary – someone working through unfinished business about womanhood and selfhood today.’
The exhibition, realised in close collaboration with The Easton Foundation, New York, which administers Bourgeois’s legacy, is the outcome of a conversation that began in 2016 with the acquisition of Bourgeois’s Arched Figure 1993 through the financial support of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation.
The Easton Foundation curator Philip Larratt-Smith said: ‘The Easton Foundation is pleased to collaborate with the Art Gallery of New South Wales on this timely and important exhibition. The beautiful new SANAA building and the dramatic and evocative Tank space offer a unique opportunity to explore the constitutive contradictions that undergird Bourgeois’s art and to present the full range of her creative output, from sculpture, painting, and drawing to audio recordings, film projections, and writings.
Louise Bourgeois: Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? is proudly supported by the NSW Government through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, as part of the Sydney International Art Series, bringing the world’s most outstanding exhibitions to Australia, exclusively to Sydney.
Minister for Arts, Music, Night-time Economy, Jobs and Tourism John Graham said: ‘Louise Bourgeois is a highly influential international artist. This exhibition, which includes the first chance to see one of Bourgeois’s best-known works, Maman on Australian soil, is a major coup for the Art Gallery and Sydney. The Sydney International Arts Series is part of why NSW can boast being home to Australia’s creative capital and increasingly, a global hub for cultural experiences.’
Special contributions by renowned American artist Jenny Holzer, drawing on Bourgeois’s remarkable diaries and psychoanalytic writings, and American composer and musician Kali Malone will enrich the exhibition, along with rare videos and voice recordings of the artist.
A richly illustrated publication will be released alongside the exhibition, featuring contributions by filmmaker Jane Campion, author Chris Kraus, psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster and curator Justin Paton, and writings by the artist selected by curator Philip Larratt-Smith.
Louise Bourgeois: Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? opens at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on 25 November 2023 and will be on show until 28 April 2024. Tickets will be on sale from 6 September, alongside tickets for the Art Gallery’s concurrent 2023–24 Sydney International Art Series exhibition Kandinsky (4 November 2023 – 10 March 2024). Discounted tickets for both exhibitions will be available, as well as an Art Pass which will provide access to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Sydney International Art Series exhibition Tacita Dean.
Sydney International Art Series is a NSW Government initiative through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia to bring the world’s most outstanding international artists and their works exclusively to Sydney.
For more information, please visit the Art Gallery website.
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