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Louise Bourgeois (1911 - 2010)
Louise Bourgeois
(1911 - 2010) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Louise Bourgeois |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
Paris, France |
| Nationality: |
French / American |
| Birth: |
1911 |
| Death: |
2010 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
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| Medium: |
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| Method: |
Sculpture |
| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Sculpture
Printmaking
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Biography
A room only of doors, a cell too small to walk into: a stage for the imagination. The steel doors with their hinged, solid windows and locks are reminiscent of a prison and give rise to a sense of claustrophobia. Some are closed, others are barely ajar, some are open and afford the viewer a glimpse inside the blue hexagon. In it stands a massive block of marble from whose rough surface a pair of finely worked hands and lower arms rise. They are utterly life-like, their veins and bones seen below the surface. These fragments of a body appear to have a life of their own and are evocative of dreams or surreal pictures. The gesture made by these hands is ambiguous and is not taken from the usual art-historical repertoire. Are the two sets of fingers being dug into each other or are they caressing each other? A round, swiveling mirror resembles a large, vigilant eye and suggests an operation Louise Bourgeois's confined Cell appears to be highly charged with personal reminiscence and a wealth of possible associations. Is this about love and death, about imprisonment and flight or about experiences of physical closeness or physical distance?
The ambiguity of this installation is typical of the artist's work, especially her large group of works titled Cells that she started aged seventy-five Bourgeois herself often explains her work by referring to her childhood that she draws on for inspiration: it is the events that happened I in my early childhood] that are the source of my sculptures. My work deals with problems. What the shape of this problem is is what the sculptures are really about.
Born in Paris in 1911, even as a girl Bourgeois experienced art as something useful': her parents dealt in and restored antique tapestries The ten-year-long affair her father had with the family's governess was a childhood experience that left its mark on Bourgeois, and it became the focus of her mature work.
First, however, she went to university in 1932 to study mathematics as she was fascinated by geometry. She was twenty-five before she switched to art. In 1938, Bourgeois moved to New York with her husband, the American art historian Robert Goldwater and she lives and works there to this day. It was in 1940s New York that she first exhibited her early, stela-like sculptures. She later began to work in marble and. along with Eva Hesse, was one of the first artists in the 1960s to use formless materials such as latex and rubber. Her sculptures are often erotic and androgynous in appearance. She has also produced an extensive body of graphic work Her Insomnia Drawings, the result of sleepless nights, were shown at the 2002 documenta in Kassel.
Although the artist mainly uses her work to address personal issues, its significance is not lost in its autobiographical elements. From her experiences and emotions Bourgeois extracts poetic visual metaphors that appeal directly to those viewing them. As the ninety-one-year-old artist commented in an interview with Katrin Wittneven on the occasion of her 2003 retrospective in Berlin: 'You don't need to know anything about my biography when you look at the work. It either communicates to you or not- My work deals with emotions that are universal.' |
Samples of Work
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