A solo exhibition of Louise Bourgeois titled Louise Bourgeois in Florence is currently on view under the auspices of the Museo Novecento in Florence. Marking her first major solo exhibition in this Tuscan capital, the exhibition presents a variety of works simultaneously at two major institutions, the Museo Novecento and the Museo degli Innocenti, each under a different title.
The exhibition in the Novecento exhibits approximately 100 works showcasing a variety of media, ranging through fabric, bronze, and marble. The title, Do Not Abandon Me, is associated with Bourgeois’s narrative experience of abandonment, with a particular focus on the mother-child dyad which is fundamental to the formation of one’s relationships.
Notable among the works is a series of red gouache paintings, THE FEEDING (2007), THE BIRTH (2008), and MAMAN (2009), featuring the motif of the mother-child relationship. Created during the artist’s final five years, these paintings explore the cycle of life through iconography of sexuality, childbirth, motherhood, breastfeeding, and dependency. The vivid red, a color most favored by the artist, evokes associations with bodily fluids such as blood and amniotic fluid. 
The center of this exhibition is Spider Couple (2003), one of the most famous and emblematic creations of the artist. From the outset of her career, Bourgeois has immersed herself in the exploration of the mother-child motif, materializing it into the symbolic imagery of spiders from the 1990s. In her practice, spiders are represented as intelligent, protective entities that are conversely aggressive and threatening at times. 
On the other hand, this special occasion revives the collaboration with the Instituto degli Innocenti, founded in 1419 as a hospital with the specific purpose of welcoming children deprived of family care. In the complex designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the museum provides a space for Cell XVIII (Portrait), a piece that reinterprets the iconography of the Virgin of Mercy, which recurs in some of the most emblematic works in the collection and strongly represents the Institution’s vocation of hospitality. In celebrating the role fulfilled by the Institution over the centuries, this image calls to mind the large female community composed of both the girls received and raised here, and the figures who have contributed to ensuring the promotion of the condition of women and of mothers. The exhibition continues through October 20.