In the hushed, vast expanse of Hauser & Wirth’s Central gallery, Soft Landscape unfolds as a tender yet formidable exploration of Louise Bourgeois’ inner world - a fertility of feeling and flesh, memory and metamorphosis. For those who’ve long cherished her work, this exhibition resonates on a profoundly personal frequency, echoing her lifelong journey through trauma, maternal longing, and psychic landscapes.
Curated by Philip Larratt‑Smith, the show brings together 19 works spanning from early 1960s “Lair” constructions to late drawings in 2004 - mapping the interplay of landscape and embodiment in Bourgeois’ visual lexicon. Her nest‑like sculptures, hollowed spirals, breast‑like mounds, and cavity‑dwelling forms emerge as cartographies of withdrawal, sanctuary, and psychic excavation.
The palette, cooler and more restrained than her red-saturated periods, signals a quieter contemplation - a wintering of the soul. And yet, beneath that restraint lies the tension between abstraction and figuration—the silent drama that constitutes Bourgeois’ distinctive dialectic.
The “Lair” series - initially crafted during a period of deep psychoanalysis in the early 1960s-takes center stage as sculptural retreats. These forms are not mere shells but emotional architecture, evoking both protective womb and haunted refuge.
This exhibition also introduces eight works new to Asia - most boldly the bronze fountain Mamelles (1991; cast 2005), where water streams from a row of sculpted breasts into a basin. Here, Bourgeois weaves a lyrical meditation on motherhood, nourishment, and inexorable time.
Also striking is the Spider sculpture (2000), making its Asian debut. Drawing on the emotional weight of an ostrich egg, this spider is more than a maternal homage - it’s a self‑portrait in eight legs, tethered to childhood memories of her mother’s industrious weaving and fierce protection.
Complementing the three‑dimensional works are Bourgeois’ contemplative drawings on music paper - particularly the “Time” suite from 2004. These repetitive, wave‑like marks function as rituals, tactile cadences of memory, conscious and otherwise. The double‑sided sheets weave abstraction, diaristic script, and fleeting words into a meditative mesh.
Nestled within the folded outlines of wooden crates and painted reliefs, Bourgeois crafts biomorphic assemblages that blur the boundary between object and terrain. Here, cavities and folds become open poems, invoking hidden geographies of the mind.
Experiencing Soft Landscape feels like entering Bourgeois’ private terrain - where trauma and comfort, exposure and protection, bleed into one another - not with melodrama, but with quiet, almost tender insistence. The exhibition invites slow pacing: to feel the weight of bronze drips in Mamelles, the fragile architecture of the Lair, the solitary resonance of ink on paper.
It does not just exhibit - it allows you to inhabit a landscape imprinted with wounds, healing, and the bodily echoes of memory.
Why Soft Landscape Matters
This exhibition is more than a survey - it’s a re‑entry into Bourgeois’ psychic cartography. Elizabeth Easton’s Foundation, in partnership with Hauser & Wirth, stages works seldom seen in Asia - making this not only Bourgeois’ second Hong Kong show but a significant moment in the region’s contemporary art landscape.
The interplay of texture, body, and milieu reveals Bourgeois as an alchemist of emotion: turning childhood guilt, feminine vulnerability, and psychological excavation into sculptures that speak to universal experience. Her work reminds us that art is not just seen—it is felt, inhabited, weathered.
Visiting Info
- Dates: 25 March – 21 June 2025
- Location: Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong, G/F 8 Queen’s Road Central, Central
- Hours: Tues–Sat, 11 am–7 pm. Free entry, no booking required.
Soft Landscape is a rare invitation: to walk the margins of Bourgeois’ emotional terrain, tracing the boundaries between vulnerability and strength, body and forgetting, creation and refuge. For those who admire her uncompromising honesty and poetic intelligence, this exhibition is nothing short of essential.
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