I Give Everything Away

Cat. No. 822

I Give Everything Away

Date:
2010
Themes
Abstraction, Body Parts, Figures, Nature
Techniques
Etching
Support:
Paper
Dimensions:
See individual.
Signature:
See individual.
Publisher
Osiris
Printer
Wingate Studio
Edition:
Unique
Edition Information:
Each panel includes extensive hand additions, and some plates were only partially inked.

The 6 compositions included in this series were each issued as the individual editions listed here, and seen below in Related Works in the Catalogue.

See Related Works in the Catalogue:
"My Inner Life"
"I See You!!"
"Swelling"
"À Baudelaire"
"The Unfolding"
"Opening Up"
Impression:
Not numbered
Background:
"I Give Everything Away" was the final project Benjamin Shiff, director of the Osiris imprint, worked on with Bourgeois. This work continued until the last couple months before the artist's death in the spring of 2010.

Shiff collaborated with Bourgeois in a highly experimental phase of printmaking that occupied the last years of her life, from 2005 to 2010. He first established a working relationship with the artist in the 1990s, but the late period is particularly noteworthy for the innovative and complex large-scale projects that evolved at that time. Shiff made use of professional workshops for printing, but he oversaw the creation of the printing plates as Bourgeois worked on them in her home studio. He also provided assistance as she added extensive hand additions and texts, and as she combined individual compositions into multi-panel works and illustrated books.
Curatorial Remarks:
The medium of the signatures and of the hand additions are not documented because this series is not in MoMA’s Collection and could not be examined in person.
Description:
Series of 6 compositions: 8 soft ground etchings, all with hand additions
Installation Remarks:
This series of 6 panels constitutes a single work of art. All of these compositions are to be exhibited together in the indicated sequence.
© The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY

From the series

Untitled, no. 1 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away
Untitled, no. 2 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away
Untitled, no. 3 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away
Untitled, no. 4 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away
Untitled, no. 5 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away
Untitled, no. 6 of 6, from the series, I Give Everything Away

Related Works in the Catalogue

I See You!!!
My Inner Life
The Unfolding
Swelling
À Baudelaire
Opening Up
Publication Excerpts

Louise Bourgeois,

I Give Everything Away,

New York, Osiris, 2010

Bourgeois's entire text for this series appears on the panels cited below.

No. 1:
I
Give
every thing
away

No. 2:
I
DISTANCE
myself
from
myself

No. 3:
from
what
I
love
most.

No. 4:
I
leave
my
home

No. 5:
I
leave
the
nest

No. 6:
I
am
packing
my
bags