Project News

Louise Bourgeois: Ode à l’oubli

February 18, 2013

Everyone has something that makes them swoon – perhaps it’s a litter of sleeping puppies or a perfectly organized bookshelf. For us, it’s Louise Bourgeois’s fabric book Ode à l’oubli. Constructed from monogrammed hand towels from the artist’s 1938 wedding, and featuring collages made from fragments of the artist’s old clothing and household textiles, this book is arguably one of our favorite art objects. It’s a powerful and poignant piece that gives us an intimate, tactile glimpse of the life and history of the artist. Though it’s highly unlikely most of us will ever get our hands on this object as it’s safely preserved in MoMA’s collection (though, full disclosure: we got to do just that this past summer, swoon…), you can check out the piece in it’s entirety on Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books, our latest digital collaboration with the museum. Together with this firsthand account on MoMA’s Inside/Out blog of what it’s like to handle, examine, and catalogue the actual book, you can practically feel the fabric between your fingers.