Louise Bourgeois in Florence

The project brings the artist's works to Florence for the first time, building a significant relationship of osmosis between her creations and the exhibition context. Louise Bourgeois (Paris, 1911 - New York, 2010) had a childhood marked by a complicated relationship with her family, out of which came traumatic experiences that were a major source of inspiration for her art. From intimate drawings to large-scale installations made in a variety of materials, including wood, marble, bronze and fabric, Bourgeois has expressed psychological states through a visual vocabulary of formal and symbolic equivalents. The scale and materials of his works vary as much as the forms, which oscillate between abstraction and figuration. Emotions such as loneliness, jealousy, anger and fear are the common threads in his work. His almost obsessive writing, as well as drawing, remained central forms of expression throughout his life.

Cell XVIII (Portrait) presents a work of strong visual impact that resonates with the Institute's history and collection: an installation chosen by Philip Larratt-Smith in dialogue with Arabella Natalini, scientific director of the Museo degli Innocenti, and Stefania Rispoli, curator of the Museo Novecento. The word "cell" in the title can be translated into Italian as both "cell" and "cell" and thus refers as much to the elementary unity of all living organisms as to the condition of isolation, separation and confinement that characterizes the prison or monastic dimension.

The "cell" exhibited at the Museo degli Innocenti finds space within the Art itinerary, which unites the gallery above the Brunelleschian loggia of the facade and the rooms of the Coretto that jut out over the ancient Church of Santa Maria degli Innocenti. The subject enclosed in Cell XVIII (Portrait) seems to reinterpret the iconography of the Madonna of Mercy, recurring in some of the most emblematic works in the collection and strongly representative of the Institute's vocation of hospitality. The image calls to mind the large female community made up of both the girls welcomed and raised here and the figures who, performing various tasks, have contributed to ensuring that the condition of women, and mothers in particular, became part of the institutional mission alongside the promotional activity on the rights of children and adolescents that is today identifiable with the Florentine institution.

The exhibition Do Not Abandon me, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith and Museo Novecento artistic director Sergio Risaliti in collaboration with The Easton Foundation, will occupy almost the entirety of the Ex Leopoldine building, between the ground and second floor rooms.

Nearly 100 works by Burgeois will make up the exhibition, including many on paper, including gouaches and drawings, created in the 2000s, as well as sculptures of various sizes, in fabric, bronze, marble and other materials. Of particular note, Spider Couple, one of the artist's most famous and emblematic creations, which will be installed in the courtyard of the Museum. The title, Do Not Abandon me, refers to Bourgeois' lifelong fear of abandonment, and in this case refers to the mother-child dyad, which is the model for all future relationships.