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Louise Bourgeois (American, b. France 1911). Décontractée, 1990. Pink marble and steel base, 28 1/2 x 36 x 23 in. (72.39 x 91.44 x 58.42 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased with funds given by Harry Kahn, Mrs. Carl L. Selden, the David H. Cogan Foundation, Inc., the Contemporary Art Council, gift of Edward A. Bragaline, by exchange, and the Mary Smith Dorward Fund, 1994.124
Throughout her long career, Louise Bourgeois has experimented with various methods of composing the fragmented parts of the body in her sculptures, yet none are more brilliant then her series of marble pieces from the late 1980s and 1990s. Most of them employ roughly finished marble blocks with human body parts seemingly growing from the stone. While some works comprise numerous organic elements, others feature a single, isolated part of the body. In these pieces, hands appear frequently: as the artist's most important tool, they are celebrated in many forms.
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum