Louise Bourgoueis

Louise Bourgeois is a French-born American artist, who was still creating cutting-edge work at the grand age of 95, which is extremly impressive. I hadn’t heard of Louise Bourgeois before watching this documentary. She was a fascinating character. Her career spanned eight decades from the 1930’s until 2010. She was one of the great figures of modern and contemporary art and was known for her large scale sculptures and installations. At the start of the film you see a massive spider sculpture being positioned in front of the Tate in London in 2000, which was pretty impressive if not slightly disturbing and scary! ( Called “Mother”!)

The film really showed how her life experiences of growing up in France stayed with her and really influenced a lot of her works. She had a troubled and quite traumatic childhood. Her relationship with her Mother who made tapestries and who died when she was 22, to her Father who had a mistress, led to a feeling of abandonment which was a main theme in her work. It was interesting to see how her journey to America just before the start of the Second World War affected her and how her art changed. She was a mother to three children and the theme of motherhood is also very strong in a lot of her drawings. Louise also suffered a period of depression which lasted for 10 years until the 1960’s when she re-emerged with works that were quite sexual. I also liked how she would open up her apartment (The Salon) for artists to bring their work. She would give her opinion and also really get out of them why they painted or made something.

I liked some of her works which were self-enclosed structures known as Cells. She explores themes of being trapped and anguish and fear. “Each cell deals with fear. Fear is pain…each cell deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at.” I wasn’t as keen on the body parts type of work which often portrays genitalia. She uses different materials like rubber, poured plastic and plaster. Definitely shows the influence of surrealism but I found them a bit heavy and made me feel a bit uncomfortable (possibly how it was made to make me feel).

I do appreciate how interesting and varied her artworks are and it is amazing that she was still making art in her 90’s, but the themes were a little bit too heavy for me. The large sculptures were impressive but the more sexual ones weren’t for me, but she was a very interesting character who was very talented. It surprised me that she didn’t get the acknowledgment for her work until quite late on in her life.

Anthony Gormley said on the documentary – “She has made her pain into form and in that form it is able to hurt us too!” This sort of art doesn't appeal to me, but I can appreciate its how she expressed herself and her heavy emotions. I like art work to make me happy not sad.