The highlights of this exhibit of new acquisitions at the MCA are The She-Fox (1985) by Louise Bourgeois and Untitled (2008) by Doris Salcedo. The rough, strange chimera of The She-Fox depicts a gaunt doglike creature squatted on its haunches, without forelimbs and with its teats swollen into bulbous human breasts. The naturalistic column of neck rises into a squared-off tenon, as if fitted to accept an iconic head, but no head exists. Instead, a smaller head portrait of the artist is tucked beneath one of the limbs of the creature. Accompanying text describes the artist's impulse in creating a symbolic portrait of her mother, but the figure is compelling even without such literal interpretation. Doris Salcedo's Untitled (2008) is a one-two punch of a huge wooden armoire half-set in a fallen wooden cabinet filled solidly with cement. The upright armoire is vast, the fallen one prone and inert. The intersection of these two solid sculptural presences is resonant with undertones of acquiescence, heaviness, sorrow and harm. Further acquisitions of video materials accompany in the adjoining galleries. At the MCA through March 15, 2009.
Image: Louise Bourgeous, The She-Fox, 1985. Collection
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Gift of Camille
Oliver-Hoffmann. Photo by Lee Stalsworth.
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