June 3–July 31, 2021 Rheinsprung 1, Basel __________
They are in between: in between animals and humans, in between resting and pouncing, in between sleep and wakefulness. I saw myself as the viewer, trying to get past them just before they saw me. —Louise Bonnet
Gagosian is pleased to present Sphinxes, an exhibition of new drawings and a new oil painting by Louise Bonnet. This is the first time her work has been shown in Switzerland.
Inspired by a wide variety of sources—from the old masters to Surrealism to the satirical drawings of R. Crumb—Bonnet’s exaggerated forms walk a line between the beautiful and the grotesque, and between absurdist comedy and extreme psychological and physiological tension. In these new works, she positions the female body as a guardian of power, filtering the mythical creature’s symbolic associations through contemporary perceptions of gender, sexuality, and identity. Poised to protect or slay, each of Bonnet’s contorted sphinxes is rife with latent potential.
Crouching, kneeling, or sitting on pedestals, the subjects hearken back to their historical origins as legendary fusions of woman, lion, and falcon who served as merciless gatekeepers—as seen in the Greek myth of Oedipus, who had to solve the Sphinx’s deadly riddle in order to enter the city of Thebes—or, in the Egyptian tradition, as majestic protectors of imperial tombs. Here, however, the sphinx is metamorphosed into a fully human form that combines raw power with femininity.
