Documentary Breathes Life Into Guggenheim Exhibit On Bourgeois
July 03, 2008
A new documentary over ten years in the making looks at the life of a famous New York artist and it coincides with a major museum retrospective. As NY1's Stephanie Simon finds in the following report, the timing is no coincidence.
Art Critic and author Amei Wallach spent more than a decade documenting the life of eccentric New York artist Louise Bourgeois, but when she heard the Guggenheim was putting together a retrospective on the artist, she shifted into high gear.
“We found out that there was going to be this retrospective, which actually started in London then went to Paris, and after this goes to Los Angeles and Washington, and I thought hell or high water I am going to finish this piece on time,” says Wallach.
Just a week before it opened at the Film Forum in SoHo, Wallach was still finishing her documentary. It’s called "The Spider, The Mistress, and The Tangerine". In the film the 96-year-old Bourgeois makes clear her artwork reflects her life and her emotions.
Wallach, who was a contributor to the PBS news program “MacNeil/Lehrer,” used the show to help get Bourgeois on board.
“I was doing ‘MacNeil/Lehrer’ and she wanted to be on ‘MacNeil/Lehrer,’ so when I said I wanted to make a film she said, ‘Yes,’” says Wallach. “I wanted to make a film because she is such a film character. You see she holds this film together. I can't think of anyone else, any other artist that would be that dynamic, that interesting, that mercurial, that emotional.”
Just as the documentary offers a new look at Bourgeois, Nancy Spector, Chief Curator at the Guggenheim Museum, says there are works in the exhibit that have rarely been seen and that won't travel with the exhibit to other cities.
“New York City is Louise's hometown and we were able to pull right from her studio to fill in places,” says Spector.
In addition to being shown at the Film Forum, the documentary will show at the Guggenheim in September.
“Where the sculptures and drawings are in a sense self-portraits in a way, but Amei’s documentary will present Louise in person,” says Spector.
Both women say you don't have to be familiar with Bourgeois to feel a connection to her or her work. For more details go to filmforum.org or guggenheim.org.
– Stephanie Simon
July 03, 2008
Documentary Breathes Life Into Guggenheim Exhibit On Bourgeois
Stephanie Simon Stephanie Simon covers the arts for NY1 News.
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