Louise Bourgeois in Bangkok Art Biennale
24 October 2024—25 February 2025
Group exhibition across Bangkok, Thailand
BAB spans across various venues over a period of 4 months and helps transform the bustling city of Bangkok into a lively hub that celebrates art, creativity, and culture. Visitors are able to immerse themselves in an array of artworks from a diverse range of artists, both local and international throughout the city, in arts and cultural spaces, iconic landmarks, temples and public spaces.
For Bangkok Art Biennale, Louise Bourgeois' Eyes, 1995, a pair of carved granite spheres, relate to introspection. Eyes are often said to be windows to the soul. Placed inside the Miskawan Garden at Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), the round forms with bulging pupils face the giant sacred golden Buddha partially visible through the temple’s windows. Although Eyes relates to seduction and voyeurism, it could also connote visionary insightfulness in Dhamma. The old bodhi tree next to Eyes inside the sanctuary is a sacred space for contemplation and peace.
At BACC, Janus in Leather Jacket, 1968, is a double-sided sculpture suspended in midair. The title refers to the Roman god Janus, whose two faces look into the past and future. Here, Bourgeois creates a more ambiguous image merging both male and female genitalia, and bringing castration and penis envy to mind.
Nature Study, 1984, represents the mother as dog-goddess and protector. A nurturing figure with multiple breasts and a phallus crouches like a sphinx or demigod next to Femme, ca 1960, a headless, voluptuous naked female torso. Placed in a room painted red, a color Bourgeois associated with intense emotion, these sculptures transmute female, particularly maternal, power. They share space with sacred yoni stone carvings from the 15th century Lopburi period.