Notes and Links from Session 6 of '6 Ways of Thinking About Art' Tate Modern

Art as Curated

For the final session of this course we looked at the Louis Bourgeois: Works on Paper exhibition at Tate Modern. 

Bourgeois's art transforms autobiography, and particularly childhood trauma and tension. It is replete with symbolic representations that hark back to the betrayal she felt at her father's long term affair with her English tutor. There is an excellent introduction to Louise Bourgeois' major work  featuring Frances Morris (and Louise Bourgeois herself) here (much of this work was shown at the 2007 Tate Modern retrospective):

If you're interested in Louise Bourgeois, see also notes and many links from my 2007 Tate Modern course 'Transformations' 

We considered the curator's share looking for invitations to focus on 

Projective interpretation  

Formal aspects (including patterns of hanging, juxtapositions, pairings, framing etc)

Artistic Intentions (particularly in relation to captions e.g. re 'Birth' - an ambiguous picture, with an unambiguous caption, the decision not to say anything about 'Maman' the giant spider sculpture)

Material Qualities of the objects (e.g. the fabric book, the effect of displaying it in frames rather than as a book etc.)

What was depicted (the hands, the body).

Thanks for coming to the course, if you did. I really enjoyed discussing these topics with you. 

I'm hoping to be teaching a new 6-session course from 23rd February 2015. 

Other Philosophy courses I'll be teaching - at Conway Hall (near Holborn tube station) on Thursday evenings from 4th September 2014:

Philosophy: the Basics

Machiavelli to Mill (an introduction to Political Philosophy)