Philip Larratt-Smith, photo courtesy of the speaker;
Louise Bourgeois, Spider Couple, 2003. Bronze, silver nitrate patina, 90 x 142 x 144 in. © 2025 The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photograph by Stefan Altenburger.
Jamieson Webster, photo by Roe Ethridge.
Tickets
General Ticket: $15
Members: $10
“You learn for yourself not for others, not to show off, not to put the other one down learning is your secret, it is all you have, it is the only thing you can call your own. nobody can take it away…” – Louise Bourgeois, Louise Bourgeois: The Return of the Repressed: Psychoanalytic Writings.
In a unique pairing to discuss a one-of-a-kind artist, Philip Larratt-Smith, esteemed curator, writer, and Curator of The Easton Foundation, which administers the legacy of Louise Bourgeois, joins in dialogue with Jamieson Webster, clinical psychoanalyst, teacher, and writer who has published work on Bourgeois and many other artists. The two will examine Spider Couple, 2003, Bourgeois’s iconic 12-foot sculpture featured in our exhibition The Ark. They will also expand their discussion to include the symbolic use of animal imagery prevalent in late artist’s profound body of work. There will be a Q&A following the discussion.
One of the most important and influential contemporary artists of the last century, Lousie Bourgeois is a fearless diver into the psychological realm. Over several decades, the artist plunged into the depths of her own psyche, fueling her creative process with heightened introspection, cathartic examinations of early childhood trauma, and more. Her use of personal symbolism, recurring motifs, and psychological release within her work created a unique stylistic dimension and a distinctive symbolic code. This code, though highly personal and individualized, has helped to capture the complexity of human experience and emotion, creating a collective sea of understanding around it. Join us as we submerge into Bourgeois’s world and perhaps contemplate our own introspective reality and its role in the creative process.
Louise Bourgeois’s work Spider Couple is on view on our outdoor deck adjacent to our mezzanine level during our exhibition hours Thursday – Monday, 11 AM – 5 PM. In addition to being the first time The Church will use the outdoor deck as part of the exhibition, it also marks the first time one of these celebrated works will be shown at an arts institution on the East End. We invite you to stop by and see a little web of history as it’s being made.
ABOUT PHILIP LARRATT-SMITH
Philip Larratt-Smith is a writer and curator based in New York, and since 2019, Curator of The Easton Foundation, which administers the legacy of Louise Bourgeois. He has curated exhibitions of the work of Bourgeois, Cy Twombly, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Yayoi Kusama, Bruce Nauman, Joan Mitchell, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Paul McCarthy, and Larry Clark. As well, he has written extensively on postwar and contemporary artists such as Philip Guston, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Jannis Kounellis, Alice Neel, and Milton Resnick. Larratt-Smith is currently preparing the selected psychoanalytic writings of Louise Bourgeois for publication.
JAMIESON WEBSTER
Jamieson Webster is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. She teaches at The New School for Social Research. Her last book, On Breathing, was published by Catapult in 2025.
Photo by Roe Ethridge