Film
A Portrait of the Artist, or Fisher-Inspired Films: Program 5
Thursday, Aug 5, 2010
7 p.m.
Additional Info
Part 1 of the Louise Bourgeois Trilogy
Agnes Martin: With My Back to the World
Mary Lance, 2002, 57 min., DVD
Chère Louise
Brigitte Cornand, 1995, 50 min., video
In French with English subtitles.
Support for A Portrait of the Artist, or Fisher-Inspired Films is provided by the Susan Wildberg Morgenstein Fund.
Image: Louise Bourgeois, The Nest, 1994; Collection SFMOMA, purchase through the Agnes E. Meyer and Elise Stern Haas Fund and the gifts of Doris and Donald Fisher, Helen and Charles Schwab, and Vicki and Kent Logan; © Louise Bourgeois/Licensed by VAGA, New York
Martin was in the final decade of her life when Mary Lance began interviewing her for Agnes Martin. The sole figure in the film, Martin reflects on her philosophy, inspiration, career, and life history: coming of age in Saskatchewan, her 10 crucial years in New York, and her 47 years in the desert mountains of New Mexico. Intimate and quiet, this beautiful film is a window into understanding Martin’s process of creation.
Chère Louise is the first film in Cornand’s trilogy about French artist Louise Bourgeois, who passed away in May 2010 at age 98. Culled from 14 years’ worth of interview sessions, set in Bourgeois’s Brooklyn studio and her Chelsea home, the film traces the inspiration, autobiographical materials, and day-to-day routines that inform the artist’s sculptures and paintings.