Louise Bourgeois — Extrême tension — Bibliothèque nationale de France, Site Richelieu — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In about 2 months: October 20, 2026 → February 21, 2027

Considered one of the major figures of contemporary art, Louise Bourgeois (1911 to 2010) developed throughout her career a singular body of work that stood apart from the major artistic movements of the 20th century. While her sculptures have largely contributed to her international reputation, drawing and printmaking occupy an equally essential place in her creative process, fostering a constant dialogue between image, writing, and memory.

This exhibition brings together for the first time the graphic collections held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Centre Pompidou, offering a new perspective on this fundamental aspect of her work. It also marks the artist’s return to a Parisian public institution nearly twenty years after her last major presentation.

Based in New York since 1938, Louise Bourgeois discovered printmaking at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17. The practice quickly became a privileged field of experimentation, closely connected to drawing and sculpture. Forms, words, and gestures move from one medium to another, revealing the recurring themes that run throughout her work.

The exhibition draws on two exceptional collections built over the years through acquisitions and gifts from the artist. Today, the Centre Pompidou holds an important body of drawings, prints, and sculptures, while the BnF houses more than one hundred prints and several artist’s books. Bringing these collections together sheds light on the connections between the works and explores the way Bourgeois transformed drawing and printmaking into spaces for research, repetition, and transformation.