Exhibition Copy: Louise Bourgeois, She Lost It (2), 1992

Silk, screenprint. Edition of 50

She Lost It (2) is a silk scarf with a screen-printed text that reads:

“A man and a woman lived together. On one evening he did not come back from work, and she waited. She kept on waiting and she grew littler and littler. Later, a neighbor stopped by out of friendship and there he found her, in the armchair, the size of a pea.”

Louise Bourgeois was one of the 20th century’s most accomplished and acclaimed sculptors, one of the few women of her generation to gain international attention. Louise Bourgeois was born in Paris and grew up working in her family’s tapestry restoration shop. She is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art. For Bourgeois, art was a tool for coping. As she put it, “Art is a guarantee of sanity.” Bourgeois died in New York in 2010, at the age of 98.

The scarf is a multiple made by the Fabric Workshop and Museum. This exhibition displays original examples of four scarves. Two locations made duplicates of the artwork. A 3rd Grade class from Provident Charter School made copies of the work in Sharpie on fabric. The public notary displays a photocopy of the scarf, alongside a notarized affidavit certifying that the photocopy was made directly from an original.