This summer, experience extraordinary sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse and Alice Adams. Three pioneering artists of the 20th century who, in 1960s New York, produced startling new bodies of work turning modern sculpture on its head. 

Louise Bourgeois (1911 - 2010) Rondeau for L, 1963, plaster © The Easton Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2025

This major group exhibition – the first of its kind at The Courtauld Gallery – will reunite the three artists for the first time since the groundbreaking 1966 group exhibition, Eccentric Abstraction, curated by influential American art critic Lucy Lippard.

Eva Hesse, No title, Nets, enamel, string, paper, metal, cord,1966, Private Collection. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Collection Services © The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

A unique opportunity to experience their remarkable work together, Abstract Erotic will feature 30 artworks including Bourgeois’ iconic, polished bronze Janus Fleuri (1968), Hesse’s Untitled or Not Yet (1966) and Adams’ rarely seen, large-scale sculpture Big Aluminium 2 (1965 and partly remade).

Alice Adams (b. 1930), Sheath, 1964, Cotton cord on cotton rope, Courtesy of the artist and David Hall Gallery, Wellesley MA. 

The exhibition will illuminate the eccentric, erotic, and abstract ways in which these artists reconfigured not just bodies, but how we experience the body in all its fantastical and surprising shapes and forms.

20 Jun – 14 Sep 2025

https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-abstract-erotic/