Eye Benches 

Curator: Well, these are unusual! I am seeing surveillance-state public furniture... almost Orwellian. Editor: You’re not far off! The work is "Eye Benches," created by Louise Bourgeois. What do you see, symbolically? Curator: Obviously, eyes—giant, unblinking eyes. As primal symbols, eyes are associated with awareness, judgment, and omniscience. Placing these immense, gray, watching eyes in public prompts questions: Are we being observed, judged, or perhaps even protected? Are they even chairs? Editor: Indeed. Consider the psychological play, then! Bourgeois, with her well-known exploration of the psyche, crafts objects of public seating as unsettling symbols of scrutiny. Their matte surfaces enhance a feeling of detachment. Curator: There is continuity with the cultural memory of religious icons, whose unblinking gazes offer constant watch over a population. Are they deities or hall monitors? The tension between the sacred and the mundane fascinates me here! Editor: Bourgeois once said that art is a guarantee of sanity... So, how insane is it to put the power of sight-- the power of watching -- into functional things that people engage with in their everyday comings and goings? Curator: What if the watcher is just a banal street fixture? Maybe Bourgeois offers not a paranoid vision, but a nudge towards self-awareness. A call for conscious living and consideration of perspectives. To truly "see" the world around you, and those within it. Editor: Maybe. Though the subtle tilt downwards also invokes, for me, feelings of sadness and perhaps... judging. Curator: Ah! But can those feelings not coexist? Such rich potential for dual readings defines her mature output. Editor: True. What at first seem like purely functional forms become carriers of profound meaning, sparking dialogue between ourselves, the art, and the world it occupies. So well, maybe those benches will finally notice what is happening around them.