Louise Bourgeois, Brooklyn, Stone

Back in the late 90's, I was visiting my friend Joe Kutchera one spring in Brooklyn. As we were heading up the dirty, pale blue, converted-factory stairway to the loft he shared with his jeweler roommate, he indicated a large pair of sliding doors. "That's Louise Bourgeois' studio," he said. All I knew about Louise Bourgeois is that she was a sculptor who made big objects that were odd and alluring, but that I didn't think I understood. I was able to get on my tiptoes and peer through a dusty, rectangular window to see inside. It was an open space, with New York City, factory-floor-afternoon light spilling in from outside. There were tools of various shapes and sizes scattered around and I noticed the piece she must have been working on at the time. It was a perfect, polished sphere made of a pale stone, that stood about 6-feet high. I concluded that she was working on the sculpture of a massive eyeball, but again, I felt I didn't understand why.

I noticed this morning that the Jewish Museum is hosting a retrospective of Louise Bourgeois' work that will open in April 2021. It made me remember that moment in Brooklyn of perhaps 22 years ago. I think now I understand why she was making a great sphere eyeball out of pale stone in her Brooklyn studio. Perhaps it is for the same reason that anybody journeys out to the margins, between what is and what is not, to listen and see and commune and finally to bring back something they have made. They do this – form giant round stones, transmit a trumpet through a wah-wah pedal, cast great pulsating color fields upon a stretched canvas or form baroque, crystal staircases and chandeliers of church organ melody -- so that someone may see/hear/smell/touch/taste - experience it and remember and tell you about it one day.