louise bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois (born December 25, 1911, Paris) is an artist and sculptor, whose work has been strongly influenced by the Surrealists, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. Her work is deeply involved in the investigation of her own psyche and relation to objects through strong intuition. She constantly evaluates her past and creates work that is based out of this nostalgia and torture. She is one of the most prominent sculptors of the 20th century. It is difficult to directly link her work to other artists because she is extremely original in much of her work. She is most known for her 'Cells', 'Spiders' and various drawings, books and sculptures.

Her parents were involved in repairing tapestries, although at 15 she studied mathematics at the Sorbonne. Her studies of geometry contributed to her early work concerning cubism (in early paintings and drawings). Unable to find what she was looking for, she began with painting, at several schools including the École des Beaux-Arts, and worked as an assistant to Fernand Léger. In 1938 she moved with her American husband to New York City, where she still lives.

Her works are sometimes abstract and she speaks of them in symbolic terms, and the main focus is "relationships" - considering an entity in relation to its surroundings. Louise Bourgeois finds inspiration for her works from her childhood: her adulterous father, who had an affair with her governess (who resided in the home), and her mother, who refused to acknowledge it. She claims that she has been the "striking-image" of her father since birth. Louise Bourgeois is very effective in conveying feelings such as anger, betrayal and jealousy. Her earliest exhibition, in 1947, consisted of tunnel sculptures and wooden figures (such as The Winged Figure (1948)). Despite early success in that show (one of the works was purchased for the Museum of Modern Art), she was subsequently left alone by the art market during the fifties and sixties. It was in the seventies, after the deaths of her husband and father, that she became one of the most successful artists living. In her sculpture, she has worked in many different mediums, including rubber, wood, stone, metal, and appropriately for someone who came from a family of tapestry makers, fabric. Some of her pieces consisted of erotic and sexual images, with a motif of "cumuls" (she named the round figures such because they reminded her of cumulus clouds). Her most famous works are possibly the spider structures, titled Maman, that have been made in the last dozen years. Today, she continues to work, having one of the longest careers that any artist has had.

In 1993 she represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. In 1999, Bourgeois was the first artist commissioned to fill the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. "Three large steel towers, about 30 feet high, dominate the east end of the Turbine Hall. Each tower supports a platform on which two chairs are surrounded by a series of large swivel mirrors. The mirrors with their reflective surfaces create an intense space for contemplation and reflection.

Visitors are able to mount spiral staircases on the towers to experience the space of the platform and the Turbine Hall. Bourgeois imagines that the platforms will become the stage for significant conversations and human confrontations. Adjacent to the towers and straddling the bridge of the Turbine Hall is an enormous 35 feet high spider by Bourgeois, the largest she has made." http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unilever.htm