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Louise Bonnet

Sphinxes

June 3–July 31, 2021
Basel

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Installation view

Artwork © Louise Bonnet

Works Exhibited

Louise Bonnet, Kneeling Sphinx 2, 2021 Oil on linen, 30 × 40 inches (76.2 × 101.6 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Kneeling Sphinx 2, 2021

Oil on linen, 30 × 40 inches (76.2 × 101.6 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Green Sphinx with Projections, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Green Sphinx with Projections, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Heroica, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Heroica, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Leaking Sphinx, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 19 × 24 inches (48.3 × 61 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Leaking Sphinx, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 19 × 24 inches (48.3 × 61 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Sphinx Pink Marble, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Sphinx Pink Marble, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Kneeling Sphinx 1, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 19 × 24 inches (48.3 × 61 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Kneeling Sphinx 1, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 19 × 24 inches (48.3 × 61 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Resting Sphinx Black Background, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Resting Sphinx Black Background, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Green Marble, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Green Marble, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Sphinx Pink Marble, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Seated Sphinx Pink Marble, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 24 × 19 inches (61 × 48.3 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Crouching Sphinx Red Base, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 17 × 14 inches (43.2 × 35.6 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Crouching Sphinx Red Base, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 17 × 14 inches (43.2 × 35.6 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Crouching with Toes, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Crouching with Toes, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 14 × 17 inches (35.6 × 43.2 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Green Sphinx Seated, 2021 Colored pencil on paper, 17 × 14 inches (43.2 × 35.6 cm)© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

Louise Bonnet, Green Sphinx Seated, 2021

Colored pencil on paper, 17 × 14 inches (43.2 × 35.6 cm)
© Louise Bonnet. Photo: Jeff McLane

About

They are in between: in between animals and humans, in between resting and pouncing, in between sleep and wakefulness. I saw myself as the viewer, trying to get past them just before they saw me.
—Louise Bonnet

Gagosian is pleased to present Sphinxes, an exhibition of new drawings and a new oil painting by Louise Bonnet. This is the first time her work has been shown in Switzerland.

Inspired by a wide variety of sources—from the old masters to Surrealism to the satirical drawings of R. Crumb—Bonnet’s exaggerated forms walk a line between the beautiful and the grotesque, and between absurdist comedy and extreme psychological and physiological tension. In these new works, she positions the female body as a guardian of power, filtering the mythical creature’s symbolic associations through contemporary perceptions of gender, sexuality, and identity. Poised to protect or slay, each of Bonnet’s contorted sphinxes is rife with latent potential.

Crouching, kneeling, or sitting on pedestals, the subjects hearken back to their historical origins as legendary fusions of woman, lion, and falcon who served as merciless gatekeepers—as seen in the Greek myth of Oedipus, who had to solve the Sphinx’s deadly riddle in order to enter the city of Thebes—or, in the Egyptian tradition, as majestic protectors of imperial tombs. Here, however, the sphinx is metamorphosed into a fully human form that combines raw power with femininity.

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Sie sind dazwischen: zwischen Tier und Mensch, halb ruhend halb sprungbereit, halb schlafend, halb wachsam. Ich sah mich als Betrachterin und versuchte, an ihnen vorbeizukommen, bevor sie mich erspähten.
—Louise Bonnet

Gagosian freut sich, Sphinxes zu präsentieren, eine Ausstellung neuer Zeichnungen und eines neuen Ölgemäldes von Louise Bonnet. Ihre Werke werden erstmals in der Schweiz gezeigt.

Mit ihrer überbordenden Formensprache befindet Bonnet sich auf einer Gratwanderung zwischen Schönheit und Groteske, zwischen dem Komisch-Absurdem und extremer psychologischer und physiologischer Spannung. Dabei schöpft sie aus unterschiedlichen Quellen: von den Alten Meistern über den Surrealismus bis zu den satirischen Zeichnungen von R. Crumb. Die neuen Werke stellen den weiblichen Körper als Hüter der Macht dar und betrachten die dem Fabelwesen zugeordnete Symbolik durch das Prisma zeitgenössischer Konzepte wie Gender, sexuelle Orientierung und Identität. Jede einzelne der verzerrten Sphinxe birst vor latentem Potenzial – sie können aus ihrer Ruhepose sowohl zum Töten als auch zum Beschützen ansetzen.

Ihre kauernden, knienden oder auf Sockeln posierenden Figuren verweisen auf historische Fabelwesen, halb Frau, halb Löwe oder Falke, die als unerbittliche Wächter gelten. In der griechischen Mythologie erfuhr dies Ödipus am eigenen Leib: Er musste das tödliche Rätsel der Sphinx lösen, um in Theben Einzug zu halten. In der ägyptischen Tradition waren Sphinxe die majestätischen Wächter der Pharaonengräber. In Bonnets Werk hat die Sphinx eine vollständig menschliche Form erhalten, die brutale Kraft und Feminität verbindet.

In Kneeling Sphinx 2 (2021), dem einzigen Ölgemälde der Ausstellung, hat Bonnet die Sphinx vor einem spärlichen Hintergrund gemalt. Ihr Kopf ist ein rätselhaft schemenhafter blonder Fleck, während der Körper in seiner surrealistischen Konstruktion umso deutlicher hervortritt. Ihre ausgestreckten Arme verwandeln sich in zwei langgezogene, Milch spritzende Brüste. Dabei vereinen sich Humor und Körperhorror mit Bezügen zu den Gestaltwandlern der Science-Fiction-Filme, die Bonnets Bildsprache inspirieren. Die Sphinx ruht auf einem würfelförmigen Sockel, so dass sie in ihrer Immobilität wie eine Statue wirkt. Gleichzeitig vermittelt ihr muskulöser Rücken und die üppig gestaltete Haut eine vitale Körperlichkeit.

Im Gegensatz zu früheren Arbeiten, die oft Darstellungen von aufgedunsenen Formen und surreal überdehnten Gliedmassen enthielten, ist der Körper in Bonnets neuen Zeichnungen wie eine straff gewickelte Feder in sich selbst gedrückt. Knie pressen auf den Bauch, Rückgrate rollen sich schlangenförmig ein und Zehen krümmen sich, als wären sie in einem Schraubstock. Bonnets Medium, die Farbstifte, nimmt den Sphinxen etwas von ihrer Unnahbarkeit. Sie wirken leichter, weicher und gefügiger als ihre gemalte Artgenossin, so, als ob Macht sowohl durch Sanftheit als auch durch Kraft entstehen könnte.

Louise Bonnet, Resting Sphinx Black Background, 2021, colored pencil on paper, 24 x 19 inches (61 x 48.3 cm)

Louise Bonnet: Sphinxes

Ali Subotnick investigates the artist’s surreal new series of drawings.

Louise Bonnet and Stefanie Hessler

In Conversation
Louise Bonnet and Stefanie Hessler

Gagosian hosted a conversation between Louise Bonnet and Stefanie Hessler, director of Swiss Institute, New York, inside 30 Ghosts, the artist’s exhibition of new paintings at Gagosian, New York. The pair explores the work’s recurring themes—the cycles of life, continuity and the future, and death—and discuss how the conceptual and pictorial structures Bonnet borrows from seventeenth-century Dutch still-life painting converge to form a metaphor for hard labor, basic animal urges, and the things we often try, but fail, to hide.

A woman stares forward and stands with her arms raised and draped in a white cloak.

Body Horror: Louise Bonnet and Naomi Fry

Cultural critic Naomi Fry joined Louise Bonnet for a conversation on the occasion of Louise Bonnet Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The pair discussed how the protagonists of the seven selected films are ruled, betrayed, changed, or unsettled by their bodies, focusing on David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979).

Louise Bonnet in front of her painting

In Conversation
Louise Bonnet, Johanna Burton, and Celinda M. Vázquez

Join Gagosian for a panel discussion with Louise Bonnet; Johanna Burton, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Celinda M. Vázquez, chief external affairs officer of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA), on the occasion of Bonnet’s donation to PPLA of the proceeds from the sale of her painting Red Study (2022).

Louise Bonnet in front of her painting Red Study, 2022, oil on linen, picturing a distorted female figure in a powerful stance, feet firmly planted and moving forward. Her hand is digging into the flesh of her hip and a red conical shape streams down from between her legs.

Louise Bonnet: On “Red Study” and Supporting Reproductive Rights

Louise Bonnet speaks with Freja Harrell about her new painting, her donation to Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, and the role of art in the fight for reproductive justice.

Louise Bonnet, Green Pantyhose, 2022

Louise Bonnet and Dodie Bellamy

Poet and novelist Dodie Bellamy visits the artist Louise Bonnet at her Los Angeles studio as she prepares for an exhibition of new works in Hong Kong and the inclusion of one of her paintings in the 59th Biennale di Venezia. The two discuss the power of horror, the intensity of memory, and their creative processes.