Leda Bourgogne
Feast of Fools
Artist
Leda Bourgogne
(1989, Wien), Austrian
Original Title
Feast of Fools
Date2019
Mediumchiffon, thread, spray paint and latex on stretcher frame
Dimensions155 × 115 × 3 cm
Classificationspaintings
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionLeda Bourgogne is an Austrian artist whose work is influenced by art informel, arte povera, tachism, feminism, and psychoanalysis. The primary medium of her practice is painting, but she often accentuates the affective dimension of her pieces by incorporating them into complex installations alongside readymades, audio recordings, and written texts. Although she regularly uses oil paint and spray paint, she frequently approaches her works as assemblages. Rather than pure painterly canvases, they are shaped by layers of soft, torn, previously functional fabrics such as cotton, silk, or latex, which reinforce the emphasis on the materiality of surfaces and shapes. Bourgogne’s pieces also resemble human bodies and their corporeality, a likeness which she further bolsters by cutting, painting, and burning the fabrics, as well as by sewing other fabrics and objects into them. In these uniquely sensitive lyrical works, Bourgogne reveals her skin and her soul, approaching her art as a means of uncovering and exploring her own identity.
Feast of Fools (2019) is crafted from a fine, transparent piece of chiffon into which Bourgogne embroidered unintelligible shapes. The delicate fabric reveals a soft silhouette of the frame it is stretched on. The work’s title references medieval carnivals—in this context, the transparency of the piece can be understood as a metaphor for masks and unmasking, symbolizing the revealing of one’s true nature and individuality.
Leda Bourgogne (*1989, Vienna) studied art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. She currently lives and works in Berlin. Bourgogne’s work has featured in numerous group exhibition at institutions including the Goethe-Institute Ludlow 38 in New York (2017), the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden (2018) and the KAI 10 Arthena Foundation in Düsselorg (2019). In 2019, she was nominated for the Swiss Art Award.
Feast of Fools (2019) is crafted from a fine, transparent piece of chiffon into which Bourgogne embroidered unintelligible shapes. The delicate fabric reveals a soft silhouette of the frame it is stretched on. The work’s title references medieval carnivals—in this context, the transparency of the piece can be understood as a metaphor for masks and unmasking, symbolizing the revealing of one’s true nature and individuality.
Leda Bourgogne (*1989, Vienna) studied art at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. She currently lives and works in Berlin. Bourgogne’s work has featured in numerous group exhibition at institutions including the Goethe-Institute Ludlow 38 in New York (2017), the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden (2018) and the KAI 10 Arthena Foundation in Düsselorg (2019). In 2019, she was nominated for the Swiss Art Award.
