heart paths creating paths creation landscapes in Jose Leonilson and Louise Bourgeois

Ana Lúcia Beck Ph.D. Candidate in Literature Studies

UFRGS (Porto Alegre, Brasil)

As paisagens cansei-me das paisagens cegá-las com palavras rasurá-las

As paisagens são frutos descabidos agudos olhos farpas sons à noite.

espaço livre para o erro regiões recompostas por desejo

Paisagens bruscas decercadas as subidas não poupam

meu silêncio: renominá-las aqui neste abandono ou apreendê-las diversas e desertas 1

! ! At the left: detail of a work by Louise Bourgeois. At the right: detail of a work by Leonilson.

CESAR, Ana Cristina. Poética. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2013. 1

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Reading Ana Cristina César, let me imply today, could be reading about

creation. That’s the landscape she draws in her poem. She is not simply talking about

creation, but rather searching for a way to express in words a place that surrounds her.

Somewhere she feels herself around. For a landscape, as indicated by Collot (2013: 55)

when quoting Richards, is much more than a geographic spot one sees from a distance.

A landscape is the feeling itself of being contained somewhere, of containing

somewhere within.

Such a landscape would then be, as well, a spot in time: the neighbourhood

where one finds one’s self. That is the neighbourhood where creation happens. A spot

sustained, while at the same time sustaining, what we would consider to be quite

opposed. Could silence speak? Might night and day coexist? Might desire and

frustration be sensed as one and the same reality? For keeping or loosing wouldn’t be

any different. And trying to, yet failing, would be one and the same attempt. Oh vast

lands, high hills, deep ravines: the artist finds himself right in the middle of creation. A

place to be where to hold or leave away creates just the same, as long as the artist

sustains his self in restrain and unfolds paths through space.

Jose Leonilson and Louise Bourgeois are to blame for my ideas of creation

as a landscape drawn by a map of emotions: holding and giving, loving and hatting,

longing for the future or being held by the past, longing for what they don’t have as

much as they long for what has never been, they create moving through paths of

feelings, affections and emotions.

! ! Jose Leonilson (Brazil: 1957-1993) and Louise Bourgeois (France-EUA: 1911-2010).

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Leonilson (José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, 1957-1993) was one of the most

important names under the 80’s Generation (Geração 80), an important historical

moment in the Brazilian visual arts scene. Even thought it was quite unusual for artists

as young as he, Leonilson soon had his work recognised in Brazil and in foreign

countries. Furthermore, from 2011 on, about 20 years after his early death, his work has

been having a significant and important retrospective analysis which helps mature and

review its critical approach. Born in a catholic traditional family in northern Brazil

which soon moved to São Paulo, Leonilson studied Art at FAAP. Though, many critics

consider that his friendships with other artists and his travels abroad have been far more

effective in building his sense and understanding of art. In his poiesis opposed places

are balanced: the emotional bond and a critical understanding of arts wells and does.

This balance somehow explains the wide range of materials and media he worked with,

as well as the proximity he established between painting, drawing, sculpting, yet sewing

and embroidering as well as writing short stories and poems. I understand we have to

consider Leonilson’s writing within such categories, even though he might have never

accepted his writing as proper literature. At one point, in Harley’s Com o oceano inteiro

para nadar (With the entire ocean to swim), Leonilson reads a poem and wonders:

“Will I ever write something as beautiful as this?” Well, he did:

! A page of Leonilson’s 1989 scrapbook.

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E você músico? sua lira seus cabelos o sol: a vontade é se atirar nesta porta trancada

pergunto pela luz pergunto por você não poderia eu me afogar ou correr meus olhos nos seus?

Certamente eu não poderia medir a distância da terra ao sol certamente não posso alcançar seus lábios

E s t a n ã o é u m a melodia triste e s t a n ã o é u m a melodia mas vejo a distância a projeção de sua sombra ao longe, seus olhos a lira seus cabelos.

And you musician? your harp your hair the sun: to desire is to throw oneself against a closed door

a ask about the light I ask about you couldn’t I drown into o r r u n m y e y e s through yours?

I certainly couldn’t measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun I certainly can’t reach your lips

This is not a sad tune this is not a tune but I see the distance and your shadow’s projection far away, your eyes the harp your hair.

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), on the other hand, worked over than 50

decades and has gained recognition of the importance of her work later in life. Born in

France, in a family dedicated to rugs production and repair, she found her ways into art

early on while attending classes in many artist’s studios. Never having stopped to work,

Bourgeois dedicated her time being for massive stone or iron sculptures, as well as for

engravings, drawings and pieces made of fabric and cloth. In her art pieces we also see

the balance between very academic materials and conceptions, and the development of

works which would not be at first consider traditional artistic materials and procedures.

Even so, nowadays the importance and significance of her work is fully recognised. And

she, as well as Leonilson, spent much time writing and taking notes, sometimes in

drawings, sometimes in notebooks, clause after clause, sentence after sentence, in many

repetitions that helped her at times cope with long hours of insomnia.

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! ! ! Louise Bourgeois, prints and scrapbook.

In very similar ways, Leonilson in Brazil and Louise in the USA and Europe

are responsible for the development and recognition of a kind of art work very close to

my heart. For them, all those things which touch and protect our skin, but that also

separates oneself from the other, become much more than they are in everyday life. And

I ought to say that it’s due to such courage that everyday life does not surpass them.

They surpass it diving deep into its roots. For everyone knows that being embraced is as

warm as having a blanket over one’s soul.

In what interests us now, both artists share similar aspects and contents in

their works. Opposed and distant in so many ways, there is the proximity of emotional

content between them. The subjective universe present in Leonilson’s and Bourgeois’

poetics should not be though considered solely in regard to the notions of content and

work theme, but rather as a fundamental state of mind and creative energy they handle

when working. Being affected by emotions, letting themselves be touched by emotions,

or trying to translate emotions, sustains the subjective approach in their works. Thus, as

we understand, working with emotions, from emotions or within certain emotional state

does not mean to be driven by emotions. If the path of creation is an emotional one, the

landscape it draws is that of a place where certain decisions must be taken. Therefore,

what would have been an emotional decision, or simply an emotional reaction in any

other space, unfolds in critical undertaking of creating balance between emotional states

and formal decisions. This particular unfolding does explain in many ways the presence

of fabrics in both artists’ creations.

Being not an artistic material from start, both Leonilson and Bourgeois are

responsible for giving this domestic and day by day material a poetic dimension that

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talks in other ways than it does in fashion, for instance. From a wide range of material

that both artists worked with, fabrics are the ones close to their hearts. Also, for both

artists, fabrics have an emotional origin: childhood.

For Leonilson, the family business of having fabric stores unfolds in the

experience of having mother and sisters always embroidering. Thus, fabrics, sewing

threats and stitching become more than a memory.

! ! Leonilson, Gigante com Flores, 1992 (Embroidery) and Sagrado Coração, 1991 (Brass sculpture).

Those are emotions getting form and body in matter. Similar paths walks

Bourgeois through, being pulled back in time to the shores of la Bièvre: the river in

whose waters her zealous mother washed antique hugs after repairing them.

! ! Louise Bourgeois, Ode a la Bièvre, 2007 (Fabric Book) and Spider, 2003 (Stainless steel and fabric).

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As we read Ana Cristina Cesar, we easily notice that she describes a

landscape with reference to different aspects regarding opposed states of mind and

emotions. The same landscape is referred to as being something she would like to get

ride off: something she is tired off, something she wants to erase, something that

somehow frightens and overwhelms her. Nevertheless, what could be the same

landscape, the same place she finds herself in, is a place where mistakes may occur,

where desire finds shelter, and thus can be nominated again. Cesar drives us into

considering that she is speaking about opposed states of mind which are characterised

by being terrifying and provoking denial, while opposing to sensing the potential of

that particular situation. In similar ways, the poet speaks about two different

perspectives for the self: feeling abandoned yet feeling creation possibilities.

! ! At the left: Louise Bourgeois, no. 8, from the series, What is the Shape of this Problem?, 1999 (Letterpress, lineblock, and lithograph). At the right: Leonilson, Isolado, frágil, oposto, urgente, confuso, 1990 (Embroidery on voile).

The poet somehow addresses a very common state of mind in situations of

anguish and distress. It’s sad to be lost in mixed feelings, as we usually do. Regarding

past life experiences, one finds one’s self in the position of holding to, or giving away a

feeling, a sensation, a memory, a sense of person itself. If Cesar is addressing the

distress of her inner voice, Bourgeois’ embrace and Leonilson’s giving back to each

other, speak about an inner distress as much as about distress in the relation between

the self and the other.

What is noticeable, specially when adopting an emotional perspective for

the understanding of art works with deep subjective elements, is that the creation

process is not one of giving image, or creating an illustration for a certain state of mind

or emotional state. Bourgeois’ says: “It’s not an image that I am seeking. It’s not an

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idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving and of

destroying.” (BOURGEOIS apud CELANT, 2010: 114). For Bourgeois, the emotions

that trigger the working process are mainly reifications from the past. For Leonilson,

many times, giving shape to desires.

Facing that inner place and bringing it to the art work means bringing it to

light as much as it means having to deal with those deeply rooted emotions. The

landscape of creation is therefore some kind of place where the relations, the battle itself

between those mixed emotions, must be addressed and handled in a very peculiar way:

having the material as a particular kind of Other. So, to handle those emotions and deep

feelings, establishes something like a conversation between artist and matter. A

conversation full of silence and full of listening to. Deep silence is necessary for

creating balance in the relation between an emotional state and focus on work. One

might say that is the point where the artist must encounter emotional restraint. And to

think about emotional restraint, I would like to think about it with the particular image

of a state of “suspension”.

The image or idea of suspension in the creative process, as I understand it,

considering a creation process with deep emotional roots, relates to the suspension of

the artist’s ego. That’s the complexity of drawing a map for the landscape of creation,

for the way unfolds itself in terms of time and space: one is creating from/with emotions

which have deep personal roots in one’s life but, at the same time, the “self” that

recognises and feels about certain events, must be somehow silenced, giving way to

deep listening to the Other. Listening to the stone, listening to fabric cloths.

A state of mind as a trigger for the creative process is indicated by

Bourgeois’ assistant when he says: “The beginning of the work has to be addressed by

the way she feels. And usually the way she feels has really to do with her interaction to

somebody else” (HARDING: 15’25). The way the artist feels does not relate to a passive

state of mind. Louise tries to “be again” in emotional states she feels as significant for

her working process. Even very painful emotions and emotional states are nourished

instead of being denied or neglected. Something similar happens with Leonilson who, in

many cases, works, as he himself states, in a mood of “dedication”. He says he

dedicates his work to the ones he feels in love with. Rather than being surpassed by

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anger or longing, Bourgeois and Leonilson recognise such states, but suspend them at

the same time, in order to create. As Willemart considers, this means also that creation

happens in a space between desires. Between Other’s desire and the desire for the

Other: the place where hearing finds home. “Entre o desejo do outro e o desejo ao

Outro, surgiu a obra e seu verdadeiro som de voz.” (WILLEMART, 2014: 186).

This image of suspension through conversation with the materials is fully

recognised as well in this formulation by Bourgeois when she speaks about the creation

process of She Fox:

In She-Fox the material didn’t give anything. To hunt, to seduce, to deal with a stone is really to deal with a terrific resistance. How are you going to turn this around and make the stone say what you want when it is here to say no to everything. It forbids you. You want a hole, it refuses to make a hole. You want it smooth, it breaks under the hammer. It is the stone that is aggressive. It is a constant source of refusal. You have to win the shape. It is a fight to the finish at every moment. Gaston Bachelard would explain this by saying that the thing that had to be said was so difficult and so painful that you have to hack it out of yourself and so you jack it out of the material, a very, very hard material. (BOURGEOIS, 1998: 142)

The idea of materials being some kind of Other is emphasised by the fact

that Bourgeois considers the stone to have certain resistance. She is of course speaking

about the natural resistance of the stone, which comes as no surprise. Yet, it is

noticeable that Bourgeois thinks about that in two opposing ways. One is that of the

stone saying no to her first wishes and desires. The other one is that the artist, at a

certain point in her work, has decided to work with the stone because of its resistance.

One might say that if wood does not have such resistance, it also means it doesn’t

speak. Therefore, what would Bourgeois listen to? Of course does wood also have a

voice, but the artist choose to have a conversation with certain voice, not other. And

maybe, being Bourgeois as assertive as she was, at that point she needed or longed for a

material as assertive as herself. So the resistance Bourgeois is talking about must be

understood in terms of care and persistence when observing the material she is working

with. This also means paying attention to the process itself of trying to put certain idea

in stone. Any idea the artist had, as well as any state of mind which originated the

working process, must be submitted to the reality of the material. How much does it

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take? What does it say? What must the artist suspend and let be in order to hold to what

can be?

When Willemart (2014) thinks about Bauchau’s Oedipus on the road,

listening to the stone is also considered of fundamental importance in order for the artist

to “listen to the order of things”. This means that, listening to the stone also means

giving room for the unconscious and to compromise with the work by “getting one out

of oneself”. This is the intricate landscape drawn by Bourgeois’ and Leonilson’s

creation process. It indicates a path of courage: putting one’s feelings and emotions in

public view. Yet there’s another road in this map: the courage to suspend that same self

in order the hear the Other.

! ! At the left: Louise Bourgeois, 2003 (Woven fabric). At the right: Leonilson, no date (Fabrics and embroidery).

Quoting Bourgeois’ idea about the stone’s resistance is significant to point

the balance which has to be elaborated between the artist’s wish and the reality of

matter. I also believe this is a significant place to identify the difficulties to differentiate

the person from the artist or author. Restraint and suspension of one’s idea of self must

take place for the significant, yet intricate road of creation, to be recognised while

putting in balance desire and reality. As we come to understand this, we might

acknowledge that a poetic statement always originates of suspension and restraint.

Bourgeois must listen to the stone in order to recognise what she wants to say with the

stone! Thus the desire to say alone does not create. Yet the desire to listen to does. The

path of creation is one of deep co-relation.

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Interestingly, when we take notice of the relation Leonilson establishes with

fabrics, cloths and embroidery, we see something alike. For him, it has been a long

journey to come to understand that working with such materials did not mean that he

had to have some kind of technical excellence in sewing or embroidering. His mother,

would not agree. Nor mine. Because for them, real fine embroidery is as perfect when

we look it from the front as when we look it from the rear. This conception is not what

we find in Leonilson’s “careless” needle work. Finding the place and time of his work,

finding the nature itself of his doing ,was not an easy task. Leonilson says:

There are works I start to do and they are so poorly done, poorly done, wrong doing [sic] and I think: I cannot try to do high fashion. This is not Balenciaga. This is my work. At first I thought the sewing had to be perfect. And I even tried to do so, but I was beaten up!

Há trabalhos que eu começo a fazer e que vão ficando mal feitos, mal feitos, mal feito [sic] e aí eu penso: não posso tentar fazer alta costura. Isto não é Balenciaga. Isso é meu trabalho. Antes eu pensava que a costura tinha que ser perfeita. E até tentei, só que eu apanhei tanto! (LEONILSON apud SALGADO, 1999: 93).

Both Leonilson and Bourgeois must find their creation giving to the material

as much as they wish from it. Letting the marble or voile say no, letting the material

show them who exactly they can be as artists. Tracey Emin understands this perfectly

well when she says that Bourgeois art pieces are always balancing and sustaining

something, sustaining a fragile moment. Fragile, yet full of potential, this is the

landscape of creation. And creation’s restrain has something to do with some precious

place the artist finds himself in, where desire and reality overlap. Where love and hate

become one. Where past and future are balanced. And looking for is the exact same

thing as finding. Creation might not have been solely an explosion, a big bang. Rather,

it would have been a sparkle in a spot between ocean and sand. A tear drop descending

Shiva´s face:

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! ! At the left: Louise Bourgeois, The Welcoming Hands, 1996. Bronze with silver nitrate and polished patina.

At the right: Leonilson, Bárbara com as mãos no bolso, 1993. Fabric and embroidery (at MACBA).

References:

BACHELARD, Gaston. A poética do espaço. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2000.

BECK, Ana Lúcia. Palavras fora do lugar : Leonilson e a inserção de palavras nas artes visuais. Dissertação de Mestrado. Porto Alegre : Instituto de Artes/PPGAV, 2004. Available at: http://issuu.com/palavraimagem/docs/palavras_fora_de_lugar.

BOURGEOIS, Louise/ Marie-Laure Bernadac/ Hans Ulrich Obrist. Louise Bourgeois, Destruction of the father, reconstruction of the father. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1998.

CALVINO, Ítalo. Seis propostas para o próximo milênio. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1990.

CASSUNDÉ, Bitu e RESENDE, Ricardo. Leonilson - sob o peso dos meus amores. Porto Alegre: Fundação Iberê Camargo, 2012.

CELANT, Germano. Louise Bourgeois – The fabric works. Milão: Skira/Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, 2010.

CESAR, Ana Cristina. Poética. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2013.

COLLOT, Michel. Poética e filosofia da paisagem. Rio de Janeiro: Oficina Raquel, 2013.

DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges. O que vemos, o que nos olha. São Paulo: Editora 34, 1998.

HARDING, Ben (produced and directed by). Secret Knowledge - Tracey Emin on Louise Bourgeois: women without secrets. BBC Scotland/Arts Production Documentary. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHyAsMdBbH4. (Access in October 2014).

HARLEY, Karen (produced and directed by). Leonilson: com o oceano inteiro para nadar. 1997. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cbQcSMXKOc. (Access in October 2014).

MANGUEL, Alberto. Lendo imagens – uma história de amor e ódio. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2006.

SALGADO, Renata (org). Imagem escrita. Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1999.

WILLEMART, Phillipe. Psicanálise e teoria literária: o tempo lógico e as rodas da escritura e da leitura. São Paulo: Perspectiva/Fapesp, 2014.

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