3rd
W.W.L.D.
Louise Bourgeois died this week, at age 98.
A sculptor who’s first major retrospective didn’t happen until age 70, she was still active and working in the studio up to weeks prior. She had no limits in medium, subject or style, using hard or soft materials, making wearable, interactive or monumental works, and continued to grow and evolve throughout her career.
In my art historical pantheon, she is a high goddess, and her work has definitely been a great inspiration to me. Her work was always supremely tactile, in ways that only objects imbued with memories can be. To touch, wear or walk beneath it would trigger an immense emotional and vivid experience. The work came from within her, from her childhood, her frustrations, her memories, yet was so masterfully communicated in her choice of form and materials, that the viewer could share in this experience, add their own experiences, and extrapolate the impact of our domestic conditions on the phyche. To me, her art was always something that was FELT in some way - whether literally interactive, or so tactile or bodily in form or materials that you could identify with it in a viscerally powerful way.
I think I am drawn to her work, because I feel a connection to her reasons for doing work, for what she wanted to communicate and how, and the need to go to uncomfortable, emotional, phycologically or sexually complicated places.
“Bourgeois was the first modern artist to expose the emotional depth and power of domestic subject matter. Before her, male artists had only nibbled around the edges, and women just weren’t allowed.” - Christopher Knight, NYT
“You have to be very aggressive to be a sculptor…I want it my way,” she said. “It is difficult to be a woman and be likable. This desire to be likable is a pain in the neck.”
“I really want to worry people, to bother people.” - Louise Bourgeois.
