Hauser & Wirth inaugurates its St. Moritz gallery with ‘Papillons Noirs’, an exhibition of works by renowned French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010). On view until 10 February 2019, the exhibition spans two floors of the gallery space on Via Serlas facing the Palace Hotel, where Hauser & Wirth has made its home. 

Comprising a selection of works from the last decade of Bourgeois’s life, ‘Papillons Noirs’ includes a series of black fabric heads alongside late experimental works on paper that belong to the artist’s collection. The fabric heads were created roughly between the years of 2000 and 2003, when Bourgeois was in her late eighties and early nineties. The title of the exhibition, ‘Papillons Noirs’, is drawn from one of Bourgeois’s ‘psychoanalytic writings’, a group of texts written while she was undergoing intensive psychoanalysis. Penned on a loose sheet of paper dated 31 January 1966, the phrase is an old French metaphor for melancholic thoughts, and references her depression and anxiety. She often referred to colour as representative of emotional states; for her, black was symbolic of mourning, despair, regret and guilt.