In the Web of Louise Bourgeois — Auckland Art Gallery
Open Late: In the Web of Louise Bourgeois marked the Auckland Art Gallery’s new exhibition Louise Bourgeois: In Private View, which runs to 17 May 2026.
For those who came, it was straight from the workday and into another world, the gallery alive with sound and movement. In the North Atrium, Scarlett was easing people in with a slow, spacious, dub-toned set that felt like a release from the city outside. The music drifted between Japanese ambient calm, Brazilian percussion, and echoing reggae-inflected bass lines. It was unhurried, almost meditative, each note breathing into the room’s height and open air. The global downtempo rhythms dissolved the day, moving you from where you had been so you could simply arrive.
This is the first solo Bourgeois exhibition in Aotearoa, gathering work from across six decades including paintings, fabric pieces, sculptures, and significant video works drawn from private international collections. Bourgeois (1911–2010), born in Paris and later based in New York, is known for exploring memory, the body, motherhood, and emotional interior life through forms that feel at once protective and unsettling. Her stitched and bound figures, monumental spider sculptures, and intimate film and performance documentation speak to cycles of trauma, healing, and self-examination. Tonight, the gallery felt built in their image: connected, watchful, alive.
The evening unfolded as a web of activity. From the music’s low, hypnotic pulse you could wander into the featured exhibition, where pop-up curators offered short talks linking Bourgeois’ recurring themes of family and the feminine to the works around them. After engaging with larger groups, they were often to be found continuing to talk one on one with visitors.
Exploring further, in the Mackelvie Gallery there was Sarah Cowie’s puppet-making table (@sarahjcowieart), where scraps of fabric and wire became small, uncanny figures. Many lingered here, preparing their creations for a performance photo. In the E H McCormick Research Library, threads stretched across frames as visitors lost themselves in patterns and knots during the web-making workshop. The air carried a quiet hum of concentration, the sound of people making things with their hands while others looked on, drinks in hand, curious and relaxed.
Not every room was open, which added to the sense of exploration. Those who ventured further found a few surprises, including a talk by the Auckland Zoo team, The Art of the Arachnid, tucked away in a basement space that only about twenty people managed to locate. The discussion about spider behaviour and symbolism offered a local link and scientific counterpoint to Bourgeois’ emotional architecture, softening the line between fear and fascination.
Back in the atrium, Isla Noon and a two-piece band filled the space with drums and keys driving a gleaming alt-pop set. Her crystalline voice, though sometimes submerged in a muddy, over-loud mix, still shone through with personality and warmth. She was engaging throughout, keeping the crowd present and tuned in with her ease and presence. Songs such as Spiralling Up, with its lyrics about learning from experience, leaned into Bourgeois’ themes of self-reflection and growth. The drama of the music drew people in, and those who came stayed to hear much of her impressive and introspective debut album Out of Body, record that translates emotional disconnection into sensory, melodic pop.
Following Noon’s set and before people had time to move on, the contemporary dance duo Body Island parted the crowd, wearing costumes that could have come from the film Dune. Their slow, tidal movements traced tension, grace, and containment through the body, a living echo of Bourgeois’ work.
Later, Scarlett returned for her second set, this time a cosmopolitan, late-night blend of European sophistication, Latin warmth, and deep-house introspection. The transitions favoured texture and mood over tempo extremes, building a subtle emotional journey through rhythm and atmosphere. It was sleek, cultured, and quietly hypnotic, a set that invited movement. The guests were relaxed and swayed gently to the subtle groove as the world outside darkened. It felt like a gentle push back into the night, refreshed.
Throughout the evening, the small indoor Bar Bourgeois and the food trucks outside, French Kiss Crêperie and Mumma Bears, kept people anchored between viewing art, making art, and the art of conversation. By the end, the whole building seemed to hum with connection: music, sculpture, dance and more all woven together, less a series of events than an inter connected living work.
A superb evening of entertainment and engagement, and one that left you hoping the gallery will do many more nights like this.
John Bradbury
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Jacqui Hampton:
