“A work of art doesn’t have to be explained. If you do not have any feeling about this, I cannot explain it to you. If this doesn’t touch you, I have failed.”
-Louise Bourgeois

The 97-year-old American artist Louise Bourgeois is pure 21st century. I can’t explain, but having just walked through a very comprehensive show of her work from 1947 to the present, I can see that she fits the definition of a 21st century artist thinker. She is media agnostic, expressing her deeply emotional fuzzy narratives with sculpture, installations, drawings, paintings and prints – not to mention her critical writings and diaries as well.

Remember to put down your brochures and chase the docents away (nicely). Louise Bourgeois’ works evoke powerful emotions sans the subtitles.

Louise Bourgeois – Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, through January 25th.