He disappeared into complete silence: rereading a single work by Louise Bourgeois

He disappeared into complete silence: rereading a single work by Louise Bourgeois

De Hallen Haarlem
Grote Markt 16, Haarlem
The Netherlands
www.dehallenhaarlem.nl

This autumn, De Hallen Haarlem presents the international group exhibition He disappeared into complete silence: rereading a single artwork by Louise Bourgeois. At the heart of this show lies He disappeared into complete silence (1947), a small whilst pivotal artwork by the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois. This booklet/portfolio, which consists of nine etchings and nine parables, triggered Laurie Cluitmans and Arnisa Zeqo to conceive an exhibition, a publication and a series of nine events all centred around Bourgeois’s artwork. For their proposal these two young art historians were awarded De Hallen Haarlem’s biennial Curatorial Grant, for 2010–2011. He disappeared into complete silence: rereading a single artwork by Louise Bourgeois will be on show in the museum from 23 September to 4 December 2011. The exhibition includes work by Charles Atlas, Sven Augustijnen, Robert Barry, Zarina Bhimji, Alighiero e Boetti, Carol Bove, James Lee Byars, Antonia Carrara, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Paul McCarthy & Mike Kelley, Roni Horn, Zoe Leonard, Tala Madani, Rory Pilgrim, Pamela Rosenkranz, Francesco Vezzoli, and Amanda Wasielewski. In addition, the ‘Machine Torture’, originally commissioned by Harald Szeemann for his 1975 exhibition ‘Junggesellenmaschinen / Les Machines Célibataires’, is on view.

Made in New York in 1947, He disappeared into complete silence signs Bourgeois’s independence and personal growth; it reflects her distancing from painting and it marks her own independent stylistic identity in the post war milieu. Consisting of nine parables and nine engravings, this work creates a universe where eternal loneliness meets absurdity and miscommunications, but never resignation. The booklet starts with a parable in which a woman is waiting in silence and ends with the image of New York flooded by the Hudson river. The engravings are inhabited by isolated geometrical and anthropomorphical constructions, whereas the parables’ characters are on a perilous threshold, yet are never excluded from life. Together they articulate witty tragedies from everyday life, in what can be called a fragile metaphysics of the human condition.

The publication, edited by Laurie Cluitmans and Arnisa Zeqo, includes original essays by Mieke Bal, Maria Barnas, Lytle Shaw, Robert Storr, Steven ten Thije, and the editors, and features a photographic series by Johannes Schwartz. The coherence of the volume is established by the shared subject matter and interpretative aim: to scrutinize He disappeared into complete silence microscopically and at the same time catapult it into the stars.

During a salon-style book launch on Sunday 30 October, the publication will be presented and discussed by the editors. The afternoon will start at 3:00 pm and is free of charge.

Further events accompanying the exhibition and publication (location De Hallen Haarlem, unless stated otherwise) are:

Saturday 5 November: Intimate musical performance. 8:00 pm
Thursday 10 November: Theater performance by Snejanka Milhajova. 8:30pm
Thursday 17 November: Leprosarium Louisiana: an evening on leprosaria and loneliness, 8:00 pm. Location: Museum Het Dolhuys, Haarlem
Saturday 3 December: Performance by Rory Pilgrim. 3:00 pm. Location: Stedelijk Gymnasium Haarlem