JOURNAL VIII:

THE MOTHER GUARDING THE FRAGILE — VOL. 8

LOUISE BOURGEOIS

 

 

The spiral is important to me. It is a twist. As a schild, after washing tapestries in the river, I would turn and twist and ring them ... Later I would dream of my father's mistress. I would do it in my dreams by ringing her neck. The spiral – I love the spiral – represents control and freedom.
Louise Bourgeois

"Art is a guarantee of sanity."

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) remains one of the most confessional and seismic figures of 20th-century art. Her career, spanning nearly seven decades, was not merely an aesthetic pursuit but a mechanism for survival—an inventory of childhood trauma, abandonment, and the complexities of the female experience materialized into form. In Bourgeois’s labyrinthine world, the motifs of the spiral, the egg, and the act of the handmade transcend mere design; they become profound psychoanalytic symbols.
This dossier traces these three fundamental images through the architecture of Bourgeois’s memory.

 

Louise Bourgeois
Spiraller (2005)

In Bourgeois’s practice, the spiral carries a visceral meaning far removed from the mathematical perfection of the "golden ratio." For her, the spiral represented a dual motion: a retreat into a sanctuary when coiling inward, and a loss of control—or perhaps liberation—when expanding outward.

 

Louise Bourgeois
Nature Study (1986)

"iIt stands as one of the most iconic andcomplex sculptures of the artist's career. Initiated in 1984 and reiterated over the years in various mediums (bronze, marble, rubber), this series reflects the artist's subconscious perspective on the concepts of 'motherhood,' 'protection,' and 'nature.'

Headlessness: The figure is devoid of a head; this absence symbolizes the suspension of rational thought, representing a purely instinctual existence."

Maman, 1999, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © The Easton Foundation

One of Bourgeois’s most striking works, Maman, is a giant spider sculpture standing over 30 feet high. It was first exhibited at Tate Modern in London in 2000. Since then, it has been displayed in various locations worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, and currently stands as a permanent installation at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

”The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn't get mad. She weaves and repairs it”

 

Why Not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?

Bourgeois’s use of found objects in her Cells reflects the influence of the artist Marcel Duchamp, who she once referred to as a father figure. Duchamp first used found objects in the early twentieth century. He presented these objects as artworks, calling them his ‘readymades’. But whereas Duchamp’s selection of objects was about the idea of the object, Bourgeois’s selection is rooted in memory and biography. The objects mean something to her.