Louise Bourgeois 604117 226043318 2008-07-16T16:00:03Z SEWilco 18620 Reverted 1 edit by [[Special:Contributions/69.222.7.246|69.222.7.246]]; Ad. ([[WP:TW|TW]]) {{Review|date=December 2007}} {{Infobox Person | name = Louise Bourgeois | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1911|12|25}} | birth_place = [[Paris]], [[France]] | occupation = Sculptor and Painter | reference = http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=all#focus }} [[Image:NGC_Maman.JPG|thumb|''Maman'', by Louise Bourgeois, is a 30-foot-tall [[spider]]. This copy of the bronze sculpture was photographed outside the [[National Gallery of Canada]].]] [[Image:'Quarantania I', bronze sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, 1947-53, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.JPG|thumb|upright|'Quarantania I', bronze sculpture by [[Louise Bourgeois]], 1947-53, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Houston]]]] '''Louise Bourgeois''' (born in [[Paris]], [[December 25]], [[1911]]) is an [[artist]] and [[sculptor]]. Her parents repaired [[tapestries]]. At 12, she started helping them draw the missing segments of the tapestries. At 15 she studied mathematics at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. Her studies of geometry contributed to her early [[cubist]] drawings. Still searching, she began painting, studying at the [[École du Louvre]] and then the [[École des Beaux-Arts]], and worked as an assistant to [[Fernand Léger]]. In [[1938]] she moved with her American husband, Robert Goldwater, to [[New York City]] to continue her studies at the [[Art Students League of New York]], feeling that she would not have stayed an artist had she continued to live in Paris. <ref name=LBI>{{citation | title= Louise Bourgeois | author=Robert Ayers | publisher=ARTINFO | year=2006 | date= July 28, 2006 | url=http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/19186/louise-bourgeois/ | accessdate=2008-04-23 }}</ref> She lives and works in [[New York City]]. == Work == She is best known for her 'Cells', 'Spiders' and various drawings, books and sculptures. Her works are sometimes abstract and she speaks of them in symbolic terms with the main focus being "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. Bourgeois conveys feelings of anger, betrayal and jealousy, but with playfulness. 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]]'', from the last dozen years. Maman now stands outside Tate Modern in London. Her earliest exhibition, in 1947, consisted of tunnel sculptures and wooden figures, including ''The Winged Figure'' (1948). Despite early success in that show, with one of the works being purchased for the [[Museum of Modern Art]], Bourgeois was subsequently ignored 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 a successful artist. In [[1993]] she represented the United States at the [[Venice Biennale]]. In [[1999]] she participated in the [[Melbourne International Biennial 1999]]. Also in [[1999]], Bourgeois was the first artist commissioned to fill the Turbine Hall at the [[Tate Modern]]. {{cquote|Three large steel towers, about 30 feet high, fill 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 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 35 feet high spider by Bourgeois, the largest she has made.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unilever.htm Special Exhibitions]</ref>}} The installations were later dismantled, the spider sculpture ("Maman") was relocated to [[Ottawa]], where it stand outside the entrance to the [[National Gallery of Canada]]. All of Bourgeois' sculptures incorporate a sense of vulnerability and fragility. Her works are often viewed to have a sense of sexuality to them, which she believed is a large part of both vulnerability and fragility. <ref name=LBI>{{citation | title= Louise Bourgeois | author=Robert Ayers | publisher=ARTINFO | year=2006 | date= July 28, 2006 | url=http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/19186/louise-bourgeois/ | accessdate=2008-04-23 }}</ref> ==See also== [[List of artworks by Louise Bourgeois]] ==References== <references/> ==Books== * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50253062&tab=holdings ''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,''] (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4 * Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings ''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''] (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6 ==Further reading== *{{cite news | last =Falconer | first =M| coauthors =| title =Listen with ‘Mother’| work =Visual Arts| pages =| language =| publisher =The Times| date =[[2007-09-15]]| url =http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2433343.ece| accessdate =2007-09-28 }} * Huhn, Rosi. "Louise Bourgois", in: ''Inside the Visible'', edited by Catherine de Zegher, MIT Press, 1996. * Mignon Nixon, "The She-Fox". In: ''Women Artists at the Millennium''. Edited by Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher. Obtober Books / MIT Press, 2006. ISBN 0-262-01226-x ==VIDEO== *[http://www.scribemedia.org/2008/07/11/louise-bourgeois-pandoras-box/ Interview with Nancy Spector about Louise Bourgeois show at Guggenheim in New York , 2008 by ScribeMedia.Org] ==External links== {{Commonscat|Louise Bourgeois}} *[http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/columnists/reinharz/?content_id=4959 Bourgeois' work and Jewish identity] *[http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/default.shtm 2007 exhibition] at [[Tate Modern]], [[London]] *[http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/AllExpositions/B72813DF6A4D07F9C1257339002CEC32?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.2.1&L=2 2008 exhibition] at [[Pompidou Centre]], [[Paris]] *[http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/exhibition_pages/bourgeois/ 2008 retrospective] at the [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum|Guggenheim Museum]], [[New York City|New York]], [[New York|NY]] *[http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue11/lumpsbumps.htm Elaine Showalter on Louise Bourgeois] *[http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/bourgeois/ Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips] from [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] series ''[[Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century]]'' - Season 2 (2003). *[http://www.gallerypauleanglim.com/bourgeois_louise.html/ Available Artwork at Gallery Paule Anglim] *[http://www.mmbeyer.com/Lisa%20and%20Paul/Louise%20Bourgeois%20spider%20.JPG Spider] Photo of statue at Philadelphia Museum. {{Wolf Prize in Arts}} [[Category:Jewish artists]] [[Category:New York artists|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Abstract expressionist artists|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:French sculptors|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:French artists]] [[Category:Modern sculptors|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Contemporary sculptors|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Conceptual artists|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:American printmakers]] [[Category:Installation artists|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Members of The American Academy of Arts and Letters|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Members of Art Students League of New York]] [[Category:Women artists|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:1911 births|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Living people|Bourgeois, Louise]] [[Category:Jewish American artists]] [[de:Louise Bourgeois]] [[es:Louise Bourgeois]] [[fr:Louise Bourgeois]] [[he:לואיז בורז´ואה]] [[it:Louise Bourgeois]] [[ja:ルイーズ・ブルジョワ]] [[nl:Louise Bourgeois]] [[pl:Louise Bourgeois]] [[pt:Louise Bourgeois]] [[ru:Буржуа, Луиза]] [[fi:Louise Bourgeois]] [[sv:Louise Bourgeois (skulptör)]]