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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Louise Bourgeois: What is the Shape of This Problem

Apr 1 – June 26, 2021
1011 9 Ave SE 4th floor, Calgary, AB T2G 0H7, Canada

It was Louise Bourgeois who coined the phrase “Art is a guarantee of sanity.” She was speaking from experience, for it was the production of art that subdued her own lifelong anxiety. She responded to the lingering traumas of childhood by going through psychoanalysis in the 1950s and 60s, but she also addressed trauma through sculpture, drawing, textiles, and writing, which she frequently worked into her prints. This exhibition presents 119 prints, textiles, and holograms from the 1940s to the 2000s. Resonant are the phrases that mingle with the art, questions such as “What is the shape of this problem?” Bourgeois did not turn away from the challenges of isolation, anger, fear, family, and the passage of time. —E.C.

Mathias Johansson, “Louise Bourgeois at the printing Press in her home and studio on 20th street, New York,” 1995 © Mathias Johansson.