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Louise Bourgeois, “Number Seventy-Two (The No March),” 1972, marble and travertine, 20 by 120 by 108 inches, collection Storm King Art Center. —Jerry L. Thompson photo

FOR 5-4

STORM KING ART CENTER OPENS ‘LOUISE BOURGEOIS’ MAY 16 w/1 cut

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MOUNTAINVILLE, N.Y. — An exhibition comprising approximately 20 works by Louise Bourgeois opens at the Storm King Art Center on May 16.

“Louise Bourgeois” has been organized by David R. Collens, director and curator of the Storm King Art Center, to celebrate the reinstallation of its major work, “Number Seventy-Two (The No March),” 1972, a large sculpture by Bourgeois that has recently undergone conservation. Purchased in 1978 with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and gift from the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation, it was exhibited outdoors for ten years. The sculpture was later moved indoors due to weather conditions. It is currently installed on the floor as it was first exhibited at the 1973 Whitney Biennial.

The exhibition will remain on view through November 15, the end of the 2007 Storm King season. A catalog will be published containing an essay by Amei Wallach, art critic, author, filmmaker and television commentator. Wallach is currently working on a feature-length film portrait of the creative process and Louise Bourgeois.

For some six decades Bourgeois has been among the world’s most consistently innovative sculptors, creating works in a variety of materials and forms. While much of her art may legitimately be viewed in the context of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and other movements, Bourgeois has been a singular artist, creating work that cannot, in the end, be categorized.

The exhibition at Storm King, most of which will be displayed in the museum building, comprises a group of works that demonstrate Bourgeois’s use of clustered forms. Works in bronze, marble, latex and fiberglass, aluminum and steel, ranging in date from the late 1940s to 1996, highlight Bourgeois’s focus on the psychological and emotional effects of human relations.

Grouping anthropomorphic and tactile forms, she emphasizes their relation to one another and to the space around them, and explores the themes of intimacy and anxiety. Deeply symbolic, the works are charged with both sexuality and innocence, mined from Bourgeois’s childhood and family life in order to understand and remake that history.

In “Avenza,” 1968–69, clustered bulges evoking prenatal forms seemingly emerge from drapery, also giving the impression of a landscape of valleys. Repetition with small variations occurs in many of the works on view. “Number Seventy-Two (There No March),” for example, is composed of 1,200 Italian marble and travertine cylinders, their tops slanted at different angles, clustered together to offer a meditation on the relationship of the individual to the group.

This metaphor applies to political life as well as to the world visible only through the lens of a microscope. Bourgeois explains: “The ‘No March’ also means accepting you’re almost nobody, [that] you have to merge with thousands like you.”

Many of the works included in the exhibition touch on aspects of femininity and sensuality. An affectionate picture of motherhood and fertility can be found in “Nature Study, Pink Fountain,” 1984, a pink marble trough whose basin is lined with multinippled breast forms. Untitled (With Growth), 1989, is also made of flesh-colored marble and contains a cluster of extremely tactile forms that appear to be sprouting from a stone.

The sculpture park is on Old Pleasant Hill Road. For information, 845-534-3115 or www.stormking.org