Louise Bourgeois was a French-American Artist born 1911 and died 2010. She is best known for her giant sculptures however she was also a prolific painter and print maker. In her work she explores multiple themes of family, sexuality, the body and more. I believe her work questions lots of social structures such as patriarchy and authority and tries to question structures of power in the society that she lived through. Her work echoes through feminist art to this day and has influenced many artists in their own work such as Eva Hesse and The Guerrilla Girls and more, however I will explore this later on in this blog.
Although I do not believe Bourgeois's work can be put into a certain artistic movement Bourgeois's art is usually seen with Abstract Expressionism however her work works well in Surrealism and Feminist Art. During the time Bourgeois was working the artistic world was moving from Modern Art (1800's-Mid 1900's) to Contemporary Art (Mid 1900's-Today). Looking at these two time frames can help us understand Bourgeois's work more, Modern Art was mostly seen as upper-class, white, male and western with people thinking of Art having a center in the world such as Paris , Berlin or New York. This change to Contemporary Art questioned Modern Art ideas and challenged hetronormative society as well as structures of power such as white supremacy, colonialism and patriarchal power. The Art world started to become much much more global and was no longer completely centered in these powerful cities. I think that Bourgeois's work is almost a representation of the change that was happening in this time frame and reflects the societal changes that were taking place.
Earlier in her career we see that Bourgeois is working in a very abstract way as seen in her piece of work 'Spiral Women' 1951-1952. Then if we go further into her career we see that her work is becoming more directly representational as seen in 'The Couple' 2003, we can now see a much more obvious form.
This, I believe shows how she wants to show the world for how it is, which I think is a re-emergent theme in her work.
One thing that I found extremely interesting about Bourgeois was the re-emergent themes/characters which she explores. These 'characters' that she explore are 'The Mother', 'The Father', 'The Child' and the appearance of 'The Mistress'. When Bourgeois explores this she focuses on family and relationships, however she explores relationships and family through sexual ideas which create perhaps unnerving images and sculptures.
THE FATHER-
Fillette 1968
In this piece Bourgeois looks at masculinity. The way this piece is crudely put together and hung by wire gives off this aggressiveness which may make men feel uncomfortable. The title of this piece also interests me, Fillette in french means Little Girl, so it seems Bourgeois is trying to emasculate the image although it is a very masculine object.
I also believe this piece also is a commentary on the Freudian idea of 'Penis Envy' where women are envious of men as they do not have a penis, which has been criticized heavily by the feminist movement as women do not lack a penis as they have their own sexual organs.
THE MOTHER-
The importance of the Mother in bourgeois’ work is is obvious. We see how dominant the theme of the spider becomes in her late work. Bourgeois uses this image of a spider to convey her ideas and views on a mother. We may look at a piece such as Maman and see a horrible, huge crude image of a spider but what bourgeois is really trying to show us is power and to relate this idea of protection to Mothers.
We can also look at what spiders do to understand this further. Spiders build their homes and I think that Bourgeois is trying to show us that this idea of a spider is a comfort. If you go under the Maman you can see that the spider has its egg sack on show. This relates back to Mothers again showing that Mothers carry and love and nurture their children. However the idea of a web also comes with danger and a lingering feeling of a trap, as well as this some spiders are known to be verminous also alluding to this idea of toxicity.
THE MISTRESS-
The Mistress is another re-emergent them that we see in her work. As we can see in this image of Bourgeois as a child with her Father, her Brother and her Tutor ‘Sadie Gordon Richmond’.
Sadie was brought into the family to teach the children English but she also had a sexual relationship with the Father. So there’s this kind of betrayal that bourgeois feels, she feels betrayed by Sadie as she was brought in for her but taken by the Father. I think that a lot of the anger that Bourgeois relates to these three figures in her life is because of The Mistress. This past trauma in her life that she uses in her work.
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