June 3, 2010

Dead and Gone

I realize that it’s rather cliché to lament that you don’t really miss something until it’s gone, but (at the risk of sounding indecently morbid) there’s definitely a sense that death marks the ultimate occasion to reflect on an individual’s legacy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the finality of death ensures that an artist can no longer create anything new: it is the point where his or her life’s work can and must be taken as a whole, as a history and world unto itself, immortal at the cost of its living potential.

The Times remembers Dennis Hopper, Louise Bourgeois, and Tobias Wong, all of whom have passed away this week. I won’t pretend that I fully appreciated the work of the first two while I hadn’t heard of Wong until his untimely demise, but there is a vague significance to each artist and I look forward to exploring what they have left behind.

• Deitch on Hopper, whose upcoming show at MoCA marks the start of Deitch’s directorship there.
• The Guardian’s take on Louise Bourgeois has a bit of character, perhaps truer to the artist herself. Meanwhile, Jerry Saltz has a short, sweet obituary of Bourgeois, as well as a few secondhand accounts of her Salons.
• Designboom has included a nice selection of Wong’s work in their obituary, while Theme interviewed him back in ’08.