不打自招

Louise Bourgeois and Sophie Calle :PTP

Louise Bourgeois, @ Centre Pompidou (28/5)

<<Hearty and hard>>

That was the first exhibition we visited in Paris. We discussed a lot after the visit, I remembered that Linda asked me about the feeling; I remembered her question but forgot my responses.

What is interesting about Bourgeois for me is the diversed media that she has worked with. The materials that she used were somehow interesting, and the most interesting thing of all is the evolution of the usage of the materials, she chose the materials based on their qualities, e.g., flexibility. From marble ( like her work “the past being gotten rid of by the present” )to wood, then steel, then clay and after all cloth, the materials that she works with are more and more flexible as her artistic career goes on, because she needs the flexibility to mold her sculptures, especially those sculptures concerning body. She regards the body, her own body, as the only thing that can represent herself. Her own body has been a recurring topic in her works. Giving birth to her son has made a dramatic change to her body, she treated her body as a safe room to her child, maybe rather than a room, it is more like a house that can give him everything that he wanted. After the laboring, she experienced the negligence from her son; she felt sad about it and made artworks with the feeling. If she treats herself as a house, we can see her work like “woman house”, “house/wife” and “house”, then the resident should be her son, she might treat her son leaving her as a resident leaving his house, and the house became abandoned, as she might have felt of herself. Her works somehow can show the emptiness and loneliness.

And other resident of the house should be her husband, before her son lived in, her husband entered in the form of sexual intercourse. Her husband’s love disappeared; she treated it as another resident left her house. Her house is tough and strong, and the support of the family, can always protect its residents, just as other housewives protect their family always. But a house need residents, housewives need their family, in her artworks, the metaphor was strongly shown. Some of the sculptures represented the family and her, her image was tough, just like a sculpture we saw there, a steel sculpture that we could see her holding shopping bags, and her family was just beside her, everything around her seemed like supporting her spiritually. She was sturdy but at the same time we could feel the weakness inside her heart and her mind, through these series of artworks.

Would mothers feel themselves as a house? I think it just depends on one sense of responsibility. A mother can feel herself as resident, and actually she is, if she lives in a house like any other members of the family. The one who takes the responsibility is the one who protects the family.

By the way, the view from the long corridor outside the exhibtion halls on the 6th floor of Centre Pompidou was nice, but it was too hot to stand there. No air conditioning in the corridor, unbelievable -_-

————————————————————————————–

Sophie Calle, @Bibliotheque nationale de France (31/5)

<<107 reactions of Sophie after she read the letter>>

I think the most suitable idiom I can use for the exhibition is 「百感交集」 - hundred kinds of feelings mixed together, this is my first impression on this artwork. When I situated in the library, (yes, the work was exhibited in a library), that was an emotional archive made by Sophie, she invited 107 women to respond to the break-up letter, I would guess that Sophie might be brave to publicize the letter, but felt weak to give a response to it. Or she didn know how to respond. Those 107 responses might represent her feeling to a certain extent.

I believe that different materials and different kind of performances can help expressing unusual feelings. Though the medium was not chosen by Calle, the variation of the expressions by the medium may be Calle intention. A static performance like writing, photography and drawing, or a dynamic performance like singing, dancing, acting, etc. Serious, hilarious, humorous, psychedelic and many other emotions that Sophie would like to express on this issue. But passively she invited 107 women to help her express. The interesting point in the work is those 107 women have different (professional and personal) backgrounds, they were from different walks of lives. So we can see 107 representatives of Calle to help her to respond. I agree with the point Carol made, the work could alienate Calle as she has put herself in a passive position in this work. This made me think of my work, a short novel about my mother, I tried to be rational and alienated myself from myself, as I thought the work could hurt me, but I felt the need to deal with it. I think Calle was kind of that, being alienated, that could be safer, and not being hurt so much, I guess.

When I came back to Hong Kong, I lost the letter. If Calle was as careless as me, might she feel better? Or has she ever felt sad about the letter? I think the wind blows it away. I am sure.

—————————————————————————————

Louise Bourgeois and Sophie Calle: Perceptual knowledge of love and hate

In Paris, we visited lots of the galleries and museums, for me, the most profound exhibitions must be Louise Bourgeois work in Centre Pompidou (28/5)

And Sophie Calle work in Bibliotheque nationale de France (31/5).

Since I chatted with Hector before, audiences and readers always compared them as two different styled artists, they used different materials to make art, but in my mind, they are very similar, when you think it deeply, and try to situate in their emotions and positions, but after all, I think I have to change my mind on this issue, I found that in the way of making art, the active and passive positions are different, as Carol said before, Sophie invited 107 women to make responses to the break-up letter from her boyfriend. And Bourgeois, she faced her problem alone, and make heartbreaking artworks on her own. I couldn’t say Calle is completely passive as she is the active one to find those 107 women, but about the artwork itself, I mean the respond, is somehow passive I think. As these were not the direct responses from Sophie. Maybe that why I think they are different, excluding the materials they used. They look similar but different, but they look different but similar, that a reaction after I went to both exhibitions.

Why I thought they are similar?

Because at the very beginning, I just concentrated on the reason why they made the artworks, and the background behind the artworks themselves. I found they were aroused by the relationship issue and love issue easily, like Louise, her sons and her husband seem like very important in her life, every steps every gestures they made would affect Louise much. And Sophie‘s boyfriend break up letter made her a chance to expose her feeling by 107 women. Maybe we can use a word”sensitive” to describe these two female artists.

7/7 in a hot night at home