My fascination with the sculptress Louise Bourgeois appropriately began in Paris, the artist’s 1911 birthplace. There I first sighted a picture of the artist, looking classically French in a black beret against the exterior post-modern mechanical mayhem known as the Centre Georges Pompidou. I was drawn in to the museum, where I encountered a large crouching spider in the lobby. I found it at once repelling and mesmerizing, as if it were both daring me to cross its path and inviting me to discover its purpose.
Standing before one of Bourgeois’s towering spiders, one gets the feeling of being hunted down. They are menacingly large, with long, skeletally thin legs that recall Tim Burton’s twisted aesthetic. But, as Bourgeois intended, there is something vulnerable about them; perhaps the delicate tips of their slender legs evoke this fragility, or perhaps it’s the precious marble eggs encased in a steel cage.
Maman, completed in 1999, stands over 30 feet high and was originally created out of stainless steel. Several bronze casts have since been made of it which inhabit collections in cities as diverse as Havana, Tokyo and St. Petersburg. Bourgeois’s Spider, smaller but along the same lines as Maman, stands in the National Sculpture Garden.
Perhaps the most remarkable effect of these sculptures stems from Bourgeois’ own emotional struggles. When she was a child, Bourgeois’s mother refused to acknowledge the actions of her adulterous father. Maman echoes this sense of mistrust and repressed anger, guarding her maternal identity with a steely fortitude but balancing on a vulnerable, thin foundation.
Interest in Bourgeois’ art has peaked over the last year, with a large retrospective exhibit that began in Paris and made its way to the Guggenheim in New York this summer. Next week, Bourgeois’ internal psychological influences will be the subject of a documentary. Shot over a period of 15 years by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine will be screened at the Hirshhorn Museum on March 8. Visitors are invited to spend the full 100 minutes of the film gaining an in-depth look at the artist as she meditates on the psychological and emotional underpinnings of her work.
Bourgeois is certainly an artist worth spending time with, and one that you will surely revisit wherever your travels take you. There is something inescapable about her work—less so because of its prevalence in sculpture gardens and museums around the world than their haunting effects. Bourgeois has followed me from Paris to D.C. to San Francisco’s Pier 11 this winter; I have little doubt that we’ll meet again.
Have something else thirty feet high that you want Madeline to inspect? Let her know at mreidy@staff.georgetownvoice.com
