Visit to Waterfalls & Louise Bourgeois

The Eliasson’s NYC waterfalls are quite a sight. A reminder of the natural world, they provide a sense of awe and wonder. The sereneness of the cascading waters alomg with the grandness of the Brooklyn bridge and the background of the concrete jungle creates a juxtaposition unlike any other. The goal of these waterfalls was to bring a little nature back into the city, but although the idea of reusing the waters of the East river was meant to reassure people of the ecologocally friendly structures, it also meant that the metal piping and the staircase hidden behind the wall of water would be that much more important. Thus when viewing the installations, perspecive is everything. From far away, when driving across the bridge, the artworks get lost with the landscape of the city and river. But when up close and on the water itself the effect is profoundly different. Like the Niagra Falls, but in NYC, their sheer size and power give rise to great emotion and an understanding of their purpose. The lighting at night also provides a beautiful glow that blends with the lights of the city, and makes the falls part of it.

I think that in many ways, the Louise Bourgeois exhibit was what I had been waiting for. We have seen some fine art, but to me, this exhibition contained the best of all worlds. While the de Kooning and Pollack work was heavy on intellectual significance, the technical aspect was suspect, as thousands of affronted and unimpressed museum goers will attest. The Turner exhibit, Buddhist manuscripts, and Fuller designs were masterpieces of execution, but I sometimes couldn’t help thinking that if you’d seen one, you’d seen them all, and that they were emotionally shallow. The Koons and McCarthy exhibits were novel and deep feats of construction, but frequently cynical and bitter.
Louise Bourgeouise seemed to combine the best of all of these and filter out the bad. There is an incredible range in style, medium, and presentation from the top of the spiral, with the “Cells” and “Couple IV”, past the “Soft Landscapes” and “Personajes” and ending at the “Femme Maison”. However, unifying the entire, seventy-year span of the exhibit are a few recurrent themes and a devotion to technical greatness. The ambiguous and sensual images provoke thought and curiosity in the viewer, but her intellectual depth doesn’t come at the expense of the execution. If anything, the opposite is true: her marble carvings alone placed her among the greatest sculptors in history. Finally, I appreciated the sincerity and earnestness of her work. In nearly every piece, she drew inspiration from her personal life and childhood, and this autobiographical basis came across as genuine intent (none of Koons’s taunting).

Are Louise Bourgeois’s works ones of madness or of genius? There is a fine line between the two, particularly when it comes to art, and even after taking the time to let everything I saw at the Guggenheim sink in, I am still not entirely sure which end of the spectrum Bourgeois’s works fall out on. There is something about her pieces that draws you in and repulses you at the same time. Certainly this level of repulsiveness is not to the same extent as McCarthy’s videos, which I found to be over the top and unnecessary. But, at the same time, there was that same voyeuristic sense that I felt when viewing the McCarthy exhibit present in some of Bourgeois’s pieces, particularly in her “Cells” series and in “Couple IV.” I consider these, as well as others such as “The Destruction of the Father” to be disturbing in nature, but I did not necessarily find that to be a negative thing. On the contrary, I found the way Bourgeois used such disturbing imagery to be a mostly powerful statement, rather than something that detracted from my appreciation of her as an artist.
One aspect that stood out in particular to me was how Bourgeois often used personal experiences and feelings when creating her art, something that I find to often be lacking in modern art, whether or not the artist claims that he has put a real personal part of himself into his work. With Bourgeois, on the other hand, you could clearly see the influences of her life and experiences on her art, whether it was “Cell I,” which contained medical equipment, a stretcher-like bed, and a bedpan, evoking the intense feelings of despair and pain that Bourgeois felt when dealing with her mother’s long-term ailment, or “Spiral Woman,” which Bourgeois herself claimed to be a self-portrait, dealing with a woman hanging precariously in the air, supported only by a spiral, unable to tell her left from her right, about to fall into the void below. Such frankness about her emotions was refreshing, particularly when the world of modern art seems so often to consist of paint splatters and sharks in formaldehyde, things we struggle to find meaning in even though so often I cynically assume that none exists.

Olafur Eliasson was both daring and adventuresome in his construction of the New York City Waterfalls. The obvious contrast in interjecting the concept of natural waterfalls into our urban paradise was risky. However, Eliasson was able to blend the natural world into the city well, so that instead of the waterfalls seeming out of place they actually complement the urban landscape and become a part of it. The Brooklyn Bridge waterfall is a perfect example of this, as the waterfall actually flows out from under the bridge strategically joining the natural with the man-made. The constant flowing of the cascading water from the falls resembles the fast movement of the people and the overall fast pace of New York City at anytime. The illuminated falls at night help to liven up the usual calm, quiet East river so that we can truly live up to our description of “the city that never sleeps.” The glowing of the falls even draws a parallel to the glowing lights of Times Square, which the city is characterized for. Despite the inherent contrast of the waterfalls and the urban landscape, the waterfalls act as a bit of a symbol for the city.

In addition to acting as a symbol for the city, the falls also remind New Yorkers of the power of nature. The four large waterfalls ranging in size from 90-120 feet high, exemplify the immense power of nature and their presence reminds any city dweller that is usually isolated from the natural world of that power.

Louise Bourgeois takes places most people describe as private and puts them in the spotlight. Her art displays a tasteful love and sometimes hatred for the human body. Her hanging sculpture, “Arch of Hysteria”, shows a person in some kind of distress. The gold colored person is stomach up and the cord to hold up the sculpture connects to the human’s navel. The legs hang naturally as if the person felt relaxed and is lounging; yet the arms are unnaturally rotated in the shoulders to show the person somehow trying to reach for their own dangling feet. The gender is indiscernible; the sculpture is headless and the private area is merely a bulge. However, the wall text said this was a man.
When calling this sculpture the “Arch of Hysteria” and featuring a man, a contradiction occurs. Hysteria was a psychological disorder more closely associated with women. Bourgeois seems interested in breaking gender boundaries by putting a male in a female’s pain. The position of the male brings into question their current state. Being suspended from a height by their navel, the person seems vulnerable as if they are being lowered into an impending death. The legs hanging and the arms reaching for the feet show possible muscle tightness, a common hysteria symptom. The position of the headless neck makes it seem like the person is emitting a sob or scream. However, the sculpture also seems relaxed and maybe resembles the tension release more of an orgasm. Many times the expression of pain and the expression of pleasure resemble each other. The juxtaposition of pain and pleasure in this sculpture strings together the entire Louise Bourgeois exhibit. She shows that life has both pain and pleasure and the difficulty to decipher between them.

Louise Bourgeois’ works – especially those in the latter half of her career – are some of the most profound pieces of art in any medium that I’ve experienced. While she draws from her own life and memories, her depictions of emotional and physical pain resonate deep within the viewer, creating a very moving experience. I was literally exhausted by the time I’d seen everything because she’d somehow been able to tap into my very core.

In this context, her 1993 piece Arch of Hysteria was the most powerful. With exquisite detail, Bourgeois cast a model of a man (sans head) in bronze. His body is unnaturally and extremely arched, to the point where his body creates a perfect circle. He hangs by his naval from the ceiling, alluding perhaps to the fact that this condition is beyond the subject’s control.

This work seems to comment on mental illnesses in general. Freud had deemed hysteria a solely female phenomenon, and yet Bourgeois cast a man’s body and fashioned the statue to look asexual. Moreover, the figure is headless, thereby ridding it of any discernible identity. These measures ensure that the figure can be identified merely as human, thereby disputing any predisposed notions about mental illness…this could literally happen to anyone. The bronze casts a very clear reflection of the viewer, forcing them to both see themselves in the Arch of Hysteria and to wonder what exactly separates them from the portrait of madness depicted.

Most haunting about this piece is the circular shape created by the body, which implies that hysteria is cyclical and self-perpetuating…perhaps even inescapable.

I think Harper’s description of Louise Bourgeois’ art as “ambiguous and sensual” is perfect. Her art reflects her childhood and memories; this is mirrored in the abstraction of her art as well as the personal stories and items she incorporates into the art. Within many of her “cells” Bourgeois used her own clothing such as in “Cell VII” where she hung them off of bones to express fragility. Her artwork focuses on how emotional pain manifests itself physically. In “Couple IV” one of the sewn dolls has a brace around its leg, symbolic of an emotional handicap. In the “Arch of Hysteria” Bourgeois looks at “how emotional pain manifests itself physically” through a historical and feminist lens. Hysteria was a sickness supposedly found only in women that was the result of deep emotional pain and resulted in physically signs such as the arching of the back. In her sculpture Bourgeois uses the body of a man. She enjoys making her audience question femininity and masculinity. In the museum I stood by “Blind Man’s Buff” for a while as different people passed by. I overheard a lot of “Wow, that’s soo phallic” and just as many “this artist loooves breasts…” There is something raw and sexual about her art, such as the series “Nature Studies” but she keeps her sculptures ambiguous, as Harper observed. What I loved most about her art was that she used it to tell a story. Her house, her childhood, her father, her siblings, her children, even her clothes and items she gathered during her life, went into her artwork.

I also saw the Waterfalls on a ferry ride to Staten Island and though I didn’t choose to write about them, I love how public art plays into its landscape (as James said, the falls became “a bit of a symbol of the city”) and draw people together to see the world around us, not just what we see in museums, as art. Interestingly, Bourgeois’ is also well known for public art displays. The spider sculpture you see when first entering the Guggenheim was part her inspiration for a series public art in London and elsewheres. Below are some links if you want to check it out:
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http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200710/r188702_706553.jpg
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It looks awesome and ominous but as usual the art has a different, personal and less abstract meaning for the artist:
“The spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver,” the 95-year-old Bourgeois said in a statement, “Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother”

*part of her inspiration

The Louise Bourgeois exhibition shows a wide range of her styles and mediums used to portray different themes. For Louise Bourgeois, art and life are inextricably linked. Many of her artworks depict themes that we can relate such as pain, fragility of people, confinement, human body, self-struggling, and woman identity. However, most of them are associated with her childhood and her later experiences in life. Some of them are disturbing to the human eye but they suggest her visual language with different emotions.

One of the works that impressed me the most is the caved-like interior sculpture, “The Destruction of the Father,” 1974. It is a family dinner table with bulbous figures that look like protruding eggs and red lights shine on them. This sculpture illustrates the conflicting and ambiguous relationship with her father because it reflects her childhood fantasy of devouring her unfaithful father who cheated her mother with the family’s tutor. In the meantime, her mother suffered silently. As a result, Bourgeois and her siblings, “Threw him on the table, dismembered him and proceeded to devour him.”

Earlier in 1947, she made a suite of nine engravings with text called “He Disappeared into Complete Silence,” which are monochromatic prints revealing her interest in the anthropomorphic qualities of architectural space and its ability to project psychological states. On plate 7, it describes once a man was angry with his wife so he cut her into small pieces and made a stew of her. Then he called his friends for a cocktail-and-stew party. At the end, all his friends came and had a good time. This work also reflects her relationship with her father. She portrays him as a cannibal who devours his own wife with no regret.

The NYC Waterfalls, by Olafur Eliasson, are supposed to be an innovative conjunction of nature and technology. Bringing together the power of Mother Earth and the power of the human mind, the idea of the waterfalls is something to look forward to, that is, unless you see it for yourself. Although the waterfalls are a great distraction from the metal and concrete that usually captures a New Yorker’s eyes going on his or her daily routine, they are nothing more than that.
The waterfall, if one could call the contraption consisting of wood and metal a waterfall, is merely an extension of the East River. Though they are supposed to inspire awe in its onlookers, the only thing the watchers can actually think about is the saltwater that’s spraying, and destroying, the nearby greenery.
Mr. Eliasson failed attempt at combining the primitive with modernity at Governor’s Island adds very little to the original beauty of the island; it may actually have a detrimental effect. Seeing the island and the waterfall from afar confuses the viewer.
The waterfall itself is a very stark object amidst the green of the island and although it’s supposed to add on to its surroundings, and bring the eye to the nature surrounding it, it seems to only bring attention to itself.

Louise Bourgeois’ works at the Guggenheim Exhibit are provocative, erotic, and emotional. The entire exhibit chronicles the many phases of her career, of which I believe the “Cell” series to be the most evocative. Most of the works from this series are of constricting cells that are ironically made of doors. This invites the viewer to peer into both the physical cell itself, and the layered mind of Bourgeois. Her works during this time consist of blending two genres of sculptural material into distinctive pieces. She utilizes both found objects and typical sculptural elements, as demonstrated in pieces such as “Hands and Mirrors,” which contains found mirrors along with a marble block and sculpted hands. She plays up the profound significance of the found objects by using them to convey vulnerability and a sense of personal connection between the viewer and the artist. Many of the featured items are those that Bourgeois had personally and previously used, such as perfume bottles and mirrors, thus bringing a sense of real openness into the work.
The work that I found to be perhaps the most gripping was the first in the series, “Cell I.” Within this cell is the bed of a sick person along with many personal possessions and statements about madness and memories. Bourgeois apparently constructed this artwork after seeing the “prison” inflicted on her mother by illness. A cell such as this is deeply personal to the artist and reflects a true earnestness on her part.
It is rare to find an artist with such ability as to not only create works that induce response, but also openly expose such a personal side of his or her life. It is this quality that truly makes Bourgeois’ work, particularly with “cells”, distinctive.

Louise Bourgeois’ exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum truly reflects the personal details and emotions she experiences in her life. The first display at the top of the museum is one of the “Couples” pieces upholstered in black fabric, with the male figure on top of the female figure, who has a prosthetic limb for a leg. The piece was a result of Bourgeois’ young innocence oblivious of what adults, like her parents, did intimately alone, questioning if the close embrace was a sign of struggle or affection. Progressing through the museum, I saw a maturity develop in the artist’s work, both emotionally and physically. Bourgeois becomes very provocative and bold with each exhibit, with the “Needle” piece for example, reminiscent of a male’s sexual organ, implying the idea that sex can create an attachment that sews two people together.

I noticed right away that many of the human figures that Bourgeois creates are armless, perhaps a symbol of helplessness. Seemingly, she experiences or recognizes vulnerability within an intimate relationship. Several of the pieces entitled “Femme Couteau” and “Three Horizontals” exude this helplessness; the latter, for example, reminds me of women unable to stand up, since the pink figures rest on their backs and do not have arms to help them get up. However, you see (wax?) hand and arm figures in many of the “Cell” works, although they exist within walls, hence the “Cell” theme; a cell can represent a prison or a trap for these arms and hands, which can be reflective of the connection between people in a relationship.

Overall, I admire Bourgeois’ audacity to express her need to “document” her life experiences; in one of her “Cell” pieces she says, “I need my memories: they are my documents.”

The words stunning, eye Grabbing and intriguing cannot merely describe the amazing works of Bourgeois. Though all her pieces contained the similar theme and idea of the physical and psychological state, I decided to focus on one piece that sort of merged each of her elements into one. In her series of “Cells,” these pieces focused on the architecture and construction of her memory. The Cell that was most appealing to me was “Cell One.” The dilapidated rooms and doors that surrounded a steel framed bed had a meaning to it. The doors did not match, they were old and the glass door had cracks in it. The way it was designed allowed the viewer to peep in either from the half open space or the cracked glass window. Peeping in, I could not help but notice the words on the bed written in red. It contained the sentence “ I need my memories, they are document.” The purpose of this is to convey to the viewer that her memories are remnants of her and her childhood. According to Bourgeois, Cells evoke different types of pain and from this room I can sense that a sick person may be contained here because of the evident bedpans and medical instruments scattered around. Also the glass is present to imply the fragility of both the physical and psychological state of a person. Lastly, on the pillow contained a spiral and this may mean confusion in a person’s psychological state because a person lays their head on the pillow to sleep and introspect at times. The purpose of these cells is to demand that the viewer peer inside and look at the objects. These objects should evoke various memories and connections. Personally I did not feel a connection, but I can sense where Bourgeois was coming from in here “Cell Series.”

Throughout the summer, I passed by Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls numerous times, while driving or on the subway. From such a distance, they were not terribly impressive. They merely looked like illuminated water, nothing special. However, seeing them up close this past weekend made much more of an impact. The juxtaposition of a waterfall, such a rare sight to a lifelong inhabitant of New York, up against a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge and various other industrial edifices was truly striking. Eliasson’s creations are certainly not displeasing aesthetically, but in order to fully appreciate them, it seems necessary to come equipped with some background information. They are powerful up close and undoubtedly arouse emotion in the viewer, but even more important is that they are eco-friendly. Perhaps the mere mention of that hyphenation gleans a little too much support these days, but in this case it is fundamental. The bulbs that illuminate the waterfalls at night are purchased from renewable sources, and the water itself is reused from the East River. There is also a monetary value to them, as it has been speculated that they will generate tens of millions of dollars for the local economies. Therefore, they are not only a decorative asset, but an investment as well. The waterfalls are worthwhile in the same way that Jeff Koons’ art is. It is a frivolous sort of thing that is spectacular and does have a beauty of its own, but is perhaps not quite on the same level as something like the Bourgeois exhibit.

Spending a day in Lower Manhattan has always been an impressive adventure. Exploring the cobblestone streets of New Amsterdam, gawking at the gigantic buildings of the financial district, strolling through the heavily commercialized South Street seaport or spotting Governor’s Island and Liberty Island from Battery Park make up a truly unique New York experience for tourists and natives alike. Recently, the Eliasson’s waterfalls have added a fresh look to lower Manhattan that only accentuates the distinctly beautiful New York story. From the free water taxi to IKEA, Battery Park at sunset, or views of the Brooklyn Bridge, the cascading water from well-lit towers of scaffolding cannot be ignored. The Brooklyn Bridge provides a breath-taking frame for the enormous waterfalls, while the Brooklyn Piers waterfall seems to almost blend in with the sky scrapers of Brooklyn Heights. Others stick out in a nearly unnatural manner, like the Governor’s Island Waterfall which dwarves any nearby buildings. Yet the overall effect of Eliasson’s artwork offers a perspective on this New York story. For a city that’s seen various waves of immigration, unprecedented architectural achievements, cultural renaissances and constant growth, the waterfalls figuratively and literally point to the start of it all—the harbor. Could New York be what it is today if the Dutch did not see New York harbor as a center for trade? Consider how New York’s history has been shaped by this geography. Anything from colonial trade to 19th Century migration is the direct result the spectacular waterways of New York. Yes the waterfalls are a cute gimmick—an unexpected spectacle in the already spectacular New York, but they offer something more than that. They remind us just how a little Dutch trading post has evolved into the city that never sleeps.

Louise Bourgeois’ work is deeply symbolic which makes the meaning behind the displayed artwork spanned her lifetime more readily discernable and potent to the viewer. In her series entitled “Cells” for example, Bourgeois uses spools of thread, figures of hands, her childhood home, the colors pink, red and blue, the spider, and various doors types of doors and text to express her emotional states and memories of her past. Each cell in this series is an enclosed space from which the viewer has to look into; this creates an atmosphere of the memory that is sacred and of that moment.

As mentioned before, each object in the room is symbolic of something. In the “Parent’s Room” the doors which close of that room are larger than those of the “Child’s Room” indicating age or stability. The bed suggests that marriage can be sweet as indicated with “Je T’Aime” on the pillow, but the red color of the bed seems foreboding in that it could mean love, but it could also mean hate. In contrast, the “Child’s Room” is more lighthearted and messier. Bourgeois placed spools of thread both pink and blue all around the room, to indicate her love for sewing. She also has sculptures of hands – large ones entwined with small ones – which show a child’s need for their parent’s support and love. There are also glass sculptures that look like hourglasses reminding the viewer that time is passing by. It is bittersweet and nostalgic.

Even though a lot of the objects Bourgeois uses are unique to her and her memories, she arranges them to exemplify universal emotions, like love, rage, illness, death, the passage of time, and the innocence of childhood that every viewer can understand, making her artwork a physical embodiment of those emotions – something modern art often fails to evoke.

“Art is the guarantee of sanity,” reads Bourgeois’s Cell I.

Louise Bourgeois is an extraordinary and original craftswoman – yet her pieces almost seem to be a self-therapy, an outpouring of what her mind cannot not contain. So in response to Sharon, I would put forward that Bourgeois’s works contain both madness and genius.

The meaning in this creator’s creations seems deeply encoded: instead of universal themes, the exhibits capture the psychological workings of the artist’s discordant thoughts. One section of the exhibition, named Confrontation, appeared to be a fit title for the showcase as a whole, which spoke of Bourgeois’s coming to terms with her own mind. I found Bourgeois’s works to be so intensely personal - containing so much of the artist’s individual meaning - that I felt helpless when it came to any interpretation of them. To recognize the artist’s intentions, I found myself having to resort to the audio guides and wall descriptions, which lead to even more confusion more often than not. Really, was I supposed to understand that the green nose hair under the phallic nostrils symbolized the gradual pain of the death of innocence and childhood? One wall-text stated, “In Avenza (1968-69), the artist’s characteristic biomorphic forms are massed together, suggesting not only a throng of phalluses or breasts, but also a strange topography or the fecund multiplication of organic matter.” The fecund multiplication of organic matter? Seriously, folks?

Although I did admittedly get fed up with the curator’s, the critics’, and even Bourgeois’s (purposely?) vague and over-the-top commentaries, I appreciated the exhibition as a tremendous achievement in self-expression and visual power. I appreciated it even further as I let my own mind take control of the works – infusing my own meanings and letting my imagination run wild. I pictured the spiders coming alive and taking over the museum. I saw the disembodied heads bellowing at each other in argument. I daydreamed of living in the crimson cave of Destruction of the Father. Maybe I need some therapy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.