A major exhibition showcases the bodily approach to sculpture taken by a trio of pioneering American artists.
By Professor Jo Applin, Director of the Centre for the Art of the Americas, The Courtauld
Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams showcases the work of three pioneering American sculptors from the 1960s, focusing on their groundbreaking approaches to sculpture alongside their use of surprising materials that invite touch and conjure ambiguous and erotic bodily associations.
These artists often utilised found objects and other non-art materials – from plaster, cord, wire, and expanding foam, to rubber tubing, string, and hardboard – which they scavenged and sourced from junk yards, industrial suppliers and builders merchants. Latex, a new material popular among artists for both its physical malleability and its fleshy feel and appearance, was used by all three in their works resembling variously bulbous, breast-like colourful mounds, and plump, soft phallic forms.
Others, hand-moulded and mounted into rows, grids, and random clusters, fill the walls with a riot of entangled forms, knotted shapes, and undulating, suspended form. Abstract Erotic not only introduces UK audiences to the work of Alice Adams for the first time, but also reunites her with two of the most celebrated American artists of the 20th century: Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse.
Abstract Erotic not only introduces UK audiences to the work of Alice Adams for the first time, but also reunites her with two of the most celebrated American artists of the 20th century: Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse. The latter’s sculptural works are rarely able to travel due to their fragile status, making this show a particularly rare and exciting opportunity to see such pieces in dialogue.
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