The Waiting Hours 2007

Curator: This is Louise Bourgeois's "The Waiting Hours" created in 2007. It’s a mixed-media work, primarily using textile. Editor: It feels melancholic, a sort of quiet desperation. All those blues, arranged in a grid... there's a uniformity to the individual panels that is offset by a feeling of something very turbulent held just beneath the surface. Curator: Bourgeois often used textiles later in her career, materials from her own life like old clothes, bedding, and tapestries, and I think it’s particularly poignant here. The personal history stitched into the very fabric adds layers of meaning. The title itself invites contemplation. Editor: Absolutely. The process itself seems deeply embedded in this piece— the labor of cutting and sewing all of that material. There’s such emphasis on craft here, isn’t there? The neat rows hide complex constructions. Are they waves, landscapes or abstract color fields? Curator: It's difficult to say definitively. She had a long engagement with psychoanalysis; her art explored complex emotions like anxiety, abandonment, and, especially, memory. So “Waiting Hours” isn’t just a title, it becomes an emotional state. Think of her famous spiders and other works, with "Maman" being the biggest statement. They are all autobiographical reflections. Editor: I like your idea of 'state.' Waiting, but perhaps also, watching? These geometries become stand-ins for the hours, or perhaps states of being. In this configuration it speaks of the labor of being oneself through making. There is the constant re-sewing, or adjustment that so many experience daily. The craft reflects the inner work. Curator: I find it especially significant that these pieces move from vibrant shades of teal and turquoise into deeper blues and almost black hues. The transition speaks of hope diminishing into something darker. In many ways the use of the material amplifies a message of societal anxieties that she wanted to communicate. Editor: Seeing it this way certainly enriches it for me. Thinking about it less as an isolated artistic expression and more as part of her process that intertwines labor and memory… Curator: I think she always sought ways of creating meaning that reflected her personal journey. It’s evident that she was fascinated with ways of reflecting life in the art, or maybe, reflecting life out of the art. Editor: Thanks. That’s something I'll remember as I walk through the gallery. It gives me another framework to reconsider Bourgeois' choices and construction processes.