Blind Man's Buff, Louise Bourgeois, 1984

Louise BourgeoisÉtats-Unis, 1911–2010

Blind Man's Buff

1984 · Sculpture

À propos de la sculpture

Wit and play are essential elements throughout Louise Bourgeois’s work. Blind Man’s Buff is named for the child’s game in which a blindfolded person must search for fellow players using only sound and touch. The artist’s revision of “bluff” to “buff” has a dual meaning. It evokes the method of smoothing or buffing marble, which was part of the artwork’s production. Buff also relates to the sculpture’s suggestion of nude body parts, which emerge from the solid marble. The allusion to nudity is reinforced by the fabric folds visible at the sculpture’s edges, as if clothing has been cast aside.

Cleveland Museum of Art

Notice

Numéro d’inventaire: 2002.29

Pendant ce temps, chez Louise Bourgeois

La vie entière

1938–2010 · Lieu de travail
New York City
1980s
Returns to printmaking in her seventies
Bourgeois returned to printmaking after a long hiatus, in her seventies, encouraged first by print publishers: she set up her old press, added a second and worked with printers who came to her house. Over her life she created approximately 1,500 printed compositions.
1982
First retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art
In 1982 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held Bourgeois’s first retrospective; she was seventy, and until then had been a peripheral figure whose work was more admired than acclaimed. The New York Times wrote that her work was charged with tenderness and violence, acceptance and defiance.
1982
The text “Child Abuse” in Artforum
In 1982 Bourgeois wrote a text for Artforum titled “Child Abuse”, in which she defined her artistic concepts almost entirely in terms of childhood trauma.
1985
First solo exhibition in France
In 1985 Bourgeois’s first solo exhibition in France was held.