Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams. A major exhibition from The 麻豆传媒社区 (20 Jun – 14 Sep 2025)
This summer, experience extraordinary sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse听and Alice Adams听at The听Courtauld Gallery. Three pioneering artists of the 20th century who, in 1960s New York, produced startling new bodies of work turning modern sculpture on its head.听听
The exhibition foregrounds their shared commitment to using humour and abstract form to ask important questions about sexuality and bodies.
The influential critic and curator Lucy Lippard dubbed this kind of work 鈥榓bstract erotic鈥, and in 1966, Bourgeois, Hesse, and Adams were the only women artists included in Lippard鈥檚 ground-breaking exhibition听Eccentric Abstraction. Prior to the emergence of the women鈥檚 movement, these artists engaged with a feminist politics of the body with their visceral, playful, and abstract forms in materials such as latex, expanding foam, string, and plaster. As Lippard later reflected, 鈥業 can see now that I was looking for 鈥渇eminist art鈥濃.
This is the first time The 麻豆传媒社区 will stage an ambitious group exhibition of this kind, with three-dimensional works suspended from the ceiling and abstract sculpture filling the gallery spaces in bold and unconventional ways.听Abstract Erotic听features important loans from distinguished public and private collections in Europe and America, many of which are rarely seen due to their inherent fragility.
Alongside iconic 20th century artists Bourgeois and Hesse, the exhibition celebrates Alice Adams, whose extraordinary sculptural works of the 1960s are of equivalent power and originality. This is the first exhibition of her work in the UK and the first ever in a museum context.
The exhibition is听grounded in the research and teaching of听Professor Jo Applin, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the History of Art, most notably her 2012 book鈥Eccentric Objects: Rethinking Sculpture in 1960s America.鈥Applin is Director of the Centre of the Art of the Americas at The 麻豆传媒社区 Institute of听Art, and听co-curated the exhibition with听Dr Alexandra Gerstein,听Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The 麻豆传媒社区 Gallery.
Supported by The Huo Family Foundation.
To coincide with the exhibition, Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s听will be presented in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, co-curated by Jo Applin and Dr Ketty Gottardo, Martin Halusa Senior Curator of Works on Paper at The 麻豆传媒社区 Gallery. The display will present a bold group of drawings by Bourgeois, revealing the central role of drawing in her work and its influence on her sculptural practice.
Tickets to Abstract Erotic include entry to听Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s听and the permanent collection.
Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams
20 June 鈥 14 September 2025
Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries, Floor 3
Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s
20 Jun 鈥 14 September 2025
Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, Floor 1
The programme of displays in the Drawings Gallery is generously supported by the International Music and Art Foundation, with additional support from James Bartos.听Louise Bourgeois: Drawings from the 1960s听is also supported by the Tavolozza Foundation.
