Comments on: Visit to Waterfalls & Louise Bourgeois

By: itall

2008-09-23T18:56:28Z

I stood before the grandeur of nature personified in a waterfall and captured by man, and was disappointed. Olafur Elliason’s waterfalls have been deployed along the East River of New York City for a while and have managed to draw large crowds. Though the scenery was wondrous, especially the setting sun over rolling waves, I was unimpressed with the contraction itself. A large clunky contraption in the shape of the scaffolding used to build New York City, it pulled water from the river only to send it crashing back down to earth. As an experience, it does not compare to the sheer power of nature. But this waterfall in my opinion was meant to be an idea and as an idea, it is intriguing and enticing. It speaks of art as not merely a stationary thing you walk by and look at in an art gallery. This waterfall brings art to the masses in a radically new context. Not only that, it poses the question about nature’s role in the cityscape. To me this waterfall reminded me of the incongruous city dweller, the pigeon. A pigeon is a wondrous creature that has adapted amazingly well to the excesses of the human race to the point that it becomes a pest. It is the grandeur of nature dwelling within the domain of man just as this waterfall is meant to be.

By: Melissawilliams

2008-09-23T16:31:41Z

Louise Bourgeois’ art was very beautiful to me. I am not a professional art critic and I definitely don’t know much about art, but her pieces were very personal and meaningful. In one of her drawings she wrote, “It is not what motivates me that matters, but what keeps the motivation alive…” to me, this exemplifies how much of herself she puts into her artwork. She not only wants to entertain people, but she wants to put herself on display as if she were the artwork herself. In many of her pieces, she shows the audience her pain. Bourgeois, like many other artists, shows how art is based on emotion and how a person feels. If you never experienced pain, how can you understand what an artist is trying to show you? In the Cell V it displayed a house in a cage with a guillotine. I took this as her home being a fortress that she could not escape from and the pain it caused her. Louise Bourgeois also had an obsession with spiders and hands that I could not grasp, I was only disgusted because I am repulsed by spiders. Maybe that was the emotion she wanted from people. Not for them to completely understand, but to arouse some type of emotion in the audience.

By: mtheeman

2008-09-23T15:46:08Z

This weekend I went for my second Waterfalls tour…and once again I found myself looking at the city in different way. Juxtaposed against edges of the city that are often overlooked, the waterfalls drew my attention to the seams.

By: jcammarata

2008-09-23T00:54:19Z

The retrospective exhibit of Louise Bourgeois at the Guggenheim felt like the most genuine art we have viewed all year. Bourgeois’ art is so deeply rooted in her emotions and memories that there is no room for feeling cheated or duped, like the artist is doing this for money or simply because he or she can.

The artwork, especially the later work, evokes feelings ranging from sympathy or nostalgia to anger or utter revulsion, and it is evident that the artist herself felt and instilled these very emotions into her art as she made it. She created black bodies sewn together in a grotesque embrace, their headless figures making the viewer feel like the bodies could represent anyone; maybe the viewer themselves, their parents and family or their friends. The strange and revolting decapitated bodies are contrasted with disembodied heads made by pieces of tapestry sewn together into contorted faces portraying anguish. The tapestry links these heads to Bourgeois’ early life and the face brings the emotion related to that time of her life.

What was so appealing about Bourgeois was not her talent in painting and sculpture, not her unconventional and sometimes Freudian subject matter, but it was how upfront she was about her art that made it special. This becomes evident through her repeating of colors themes and figures throughout the work in all mediums. The feelings of looking in on a private world full of tension and animosity generated by the Red Room of the parents is matched by the red bathed scene in “The Death of the Father.” Various Sculptures contained the same cumulus figures which seemed to represent the bleak uniformity of people in a group; too crowded to be comfortable but too afraid to be alone. Bourgeois’ art was far from pleasant; at times I could do nothing but stare in revulsion or wonderment as to why I would allow myself to look upon something so private and twisted, but at least there was no questioning its nature. No guilty anger or “Is there something to get?” feelings. Instead there was only emotion.

By: ahum

2008-09-22T22:31:03Z

In response to many of the positive opinions about Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls, I honestly have to say I felt a bit of disappointment after taking the waterfall tour. I can see how Olafur Eliasson wanted to recreate a naturally occurring phenomenon by introducing a waterfall to the urban scene, but there was something about the artificiality that made the installations off-putting. Though I was trying to enjoy the beauty of the rapidly flowing water, I did not experience the majestic feelings a real waterfall like Niagara Falls would induce.

I felt that something as magnificent and breathtaking as a waterfall was not in the least captured by the 90-120 feet metal constructed imitation. The installations made me think about how man-made products interfere with nature’s natural processes. The salt water that is getting recycled to create the waterfall causes adverse effects on the surrounding flora along the East River because the water-retentive properties of salt interfere with photosynthesis. I do appreciate how the pieces were designed to be eco-friendly but maybe a few detrimental effects were overlooked.

Overall, the falls did not appeal to me in terms of magnificence and beauty, but I’d like to give credit to Olafur Eliasson for not only thinking of a project out side of the conventional lines of “art” and creating a scenic piece of nature in the midst of an urban metropolis, but also expanding the economical value of art by making it a great tourist venue as well as a city dwellers escape.

By: glue

2008-09-22T22:23:24Z

The New York City waterfalls by Oliafur Eliasson somehow manage to change the average person’s definition of a waterfall. Instead of being a natural body of water, which flows off of a cliff into a river basin, or something of the like; Eliasson’s project changes one’s perception of a waterfall into something that can be anywhere. The waterfalls instead, have a very Spartan and industrial look about them and blend well into the metropolitan nature of New York City. Normally, one would refer to a city as a concrete jungle, but in this case, the opposite is now applicable. Instead of having a jungle, the waterfall is instead transformed into something man-made and unnatural. Even though these waterfalls were created as an art exhibit, they still seem to manage to retain the beauty of naturally occurring waterfalls. When taking a ferry tour of the waterfalls, they seem much more real and are more gratifying than simply seeing them from the shore of the island.
This exhibit could also be seen as reverting New York City back to a more natural state by building a structure that is only found in nature in multiple locations all around the city waters for all to see.

By: Mia Blackwood

2008-09-22T21:22:22Z

I found Louise Bourgeois’ works to be amazingly crafted. The thing I loved the most was her ability to take the emotions from her past and use them as inspiration for her work. Couple IV expressed her confusion upon walking in on her parents having sex, and also on the emotional “handicap” felt by lovers as illustrated using a prosthetic leg. In Cell I she has the words, “I need my memories; they are my documents,” stitched onto a bedspread. Her memories are her documents. They define her and make her real. The Cell series are all physical representations of the different types of pain she has felt; physical, emotional, psychological, mental, and intellectual. These pains and memories can be seen through her choice of color- often reds, pinks, or blues-, objects- such as clothing or trinkets from her past-, and layout- like the spiraled, enclosed design on her Cell series.
One piece I found fascinating was Le Défi. It was made of shelves filled with glass containers of all shapes and sizes. Some were lit from the inside, others reflected the light given off. I listened to the audio, which made no mention of this, but I felt like the glass containers were different memories, stored on the shelves, as her memories were stored in Bourgeois’ mind. Memories were activated and “lit up”, bringing to light other memories. I saw Le Défi as Louise Bourgeois’ representation of her inspirations for her different pieces. I don’t care how much “inspiration” you used when splattering paint on a canvas; Louise Bourgeois’ works required intense amounts of strength- physically sculpting or emotional recollection- and well-thought-out and detailed plans that I can’t help but be impressed with.

By: vbaldassare

2008-09-22T18:47:52Z

Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls would seem to be out of place in the city of New York, where everyday sights consist of lots of concrete and the occasional tree. However, the lights of the city at night in the background only added to the beauty of the waterfalls. I feel that during the day, the waterfalls would have been much less impressive, but at night they were majestic and grand against the backdrop of bright city lights.
While the waterfalls themselves are not anything terribly original or impressive, to place them in such a big, busy city makes them appear special. To make the falls eco-friendly is to put them in direct contrast with a city where there is so little nature and where there is often disregard for what nature there is. However the city and the waterfalls also seem to be similar. The waterfalls are continuous, water is always flowing through them, always moving- just like the “city that never sleeps”. There is constant change as well since a waterfall is moving at every instant and will never be the same as it was at a different instance. And so it is with New York City. The city is continuously changing as our fast pace lives move us through our days.
So perhaps the waterfalls are there for more of a reason then to give us a break from the monotonous concrete walls of the city- perhaps they are there to represent the constant change of our city.

By: silyas

2008-09-22T18:37:43Z

The latest artistic enterprise of Danish designer Olafur Eliasson has resulted in ambivalent reactions from New Yorkers and tourists alike. The four 90-120 ft. waterfalls have been described as a great artistic achievement by those who are in awe of its sheer magnitude or as a hunk of metal thrown together with no apparent purpose. I for one thought that these waterfalls, although not serving an apparent purpose, where both culturally relevant and fiscally prudent. The waterfalls are part of a recent endeavor by New York City to increase the number of public works art projects and allow artists from around the world to showcase their talents. New York City is often acclaimed the cultural center of the world, mainly in part to its large-scale public arts projects, and these waterfalls are the beginning to many new artistic ventures to come in the coming years. Although I did not see an apparent purpose that the waterfalls served, I realized that they were a work of art and just needed to be admired. Art does not necessarily have to serve a purpose; it just has to attract on-lookers who may have never noticed a work similar to this before. For those who have never visited Niagara Falls or will never have the chance to, these waterfalls provide a glimpse of what nature offers. Taking the tour at night, one can truly appreciate this experience and experience great joy by simply listening to the water. Although rather large and intricately built, the waterfalls still remind us of the power of nature and the simple pleasures it can provide.

By: rlee

2008-09-22T16:51:51Z

My visit to the Guggenheim was filled with mixed feelings. At first, Bourgeois’ works brought out a similar feeling to the one I felt when I saw McCarthy’s works at the Whitney museum: an uneasy sense that the artist had some sort of psychological problem. I felt this way when viewing, what looked like, cloth covered, headless manikins having sex and when I came upon a cave-like piece that depicted Bourgeois’ father, cut up into pieces on the dinner table.
When I saw the piece on a couple lying together and listened to the accompanying audio guide, I felt a sense of disgust. Bourgeois had created the piece to show a couple having sex from the perspective of a child, walking in on their parents for the first time. This, as the first piece I looked at, gave me a distorted view of Bourgeois and her work.
Despite my initial reactions, I feel that Bourgeois was very symbolic in many of her works. This symbolism is seen mostly in her “cells,” but one piece that I found to be very symbolic was a casting of a body, hanging belly up, in a distorted arch shape. Before I played the audio guide, the first thing I was reminded of was the way in which infants squirm around when they are uncomfortable. I thought it was interesting how Louise depicted the discomfort and struggle of women by using a man to pose for the piece in a posture that, at the time, was associated with women.
Overall, despite the fact that I was surprised by the amount of pieces in the exhibit, I feel that Bourgeois was successful in using her symbolism to show her audience about her past and her beliefs.