Sculpture, changed - Some notes

What I'm circling around right now ... is the idea of soft sculpture. 

I saw the Bourgeois, Hesse and Adams exhibition at the Courtauld on Friday. It's a recasting of the 1966 exhibition curated by Lucy Lippard, focusing on the three women artists in that original show. The Courtauld's is Abstract Erotic, based on a phrase coined by Lippard; her show was called Eccentric Abstractions. I find soft sculpture exciting because it's subversive but I admit to being lost in the exhibition. I spent good time in there, revisiting the two beautifully appointed and well curated rooms several times and working through my anxiety to absorb the messages conveyed by captions and hanging in the air as the pieces dialogued. The feeling of finding some pieces a waste of time bothered me. I was delighted to see Fée Couturière and Le Regard. 

As I contemplated Fée Couturière, which I only recalled having seen numerous times in books, I was taken by its suspended state, its being cast in bronze and then painted white, and its impenetrability - both materially and conceptually. It appears to be a soft sculpture, but knowledge of its bronze casting left me feeling confined. It is undeniably heavy because of its materiality and how it is presented in suspension, yet its rough surface gives it the appearance of softness and as it appears to hover, how heavy can it be? It's always reminded me of a beehive or a wasps' nest: more intimations of levity, but also risk and peril.

Moving on to Le Regard, this looks soft because it was originally. Bourgeois hadn't thought about how latex goes hard over time, so it now lacks the potential to wobble and re-form itself depending on its surroundings. Akin to its drop-like sister, it conveyed a sense of confinement to me, and peril, again. It offers a regard, monitoring its audience, who's simultaneously curious about what's inside the eye. Is it an eye? How can I master this grand eye by getting to know it better?

All the sculptures suggest softness but most of them are hard. They all suspend comprehension and many of them stand suspended. They are space reconfigured, and I guess this is where we come full circle back to sculpture.

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