Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist whose extensive body of work encompassed sculpture, installation art, painting, and printmaking. Her art repeatedly explored themes such as domesticity and the family, sexuality and the body, as well as death and the unconscious, drawing connections to her childhood experiences which she viewed as a therapeutic process. Although her work shares commonalities with movements like Surrealism and Feminist art, Bourgeois never formally aligned herself with a particular artistic group. Her distinct artistic approach makes her a significant figure in the art world.
This fascinating diary by Louise Bourgeois, a midwife in 17th century France, offers an intimate look into the birth of Louis XIII. With a wealth of practical detail and personal observations, it provides a unique perspective on an important moment in French history. Whether you're a historian, a student of women's health, or simply enjoy a good story, this book is a captivating read.
Late textile works by the artist who helped pioneer the sculptural use of fabric in art This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fabric works from the last two decades in the career of legendary artist Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010). “I’ve always had a fascination with the needle,” she once said, “the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It’s a claim to forgiveness.”This body of work began when the artist started incorporating clothes from all stages of her life into her art, and later expanded to include a range of other textiles such as bed linen, handkerchiefs, tapestry, and needlepoint. The fabric works mine the themes of identity and sexuality, trauma and memory, guilt and reparation, and serve as metaphors for emotional and psychological states.The catalog―which accompanies the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, and the Gropius Bau, Berlin―features works from numerous series, including the monumental Cell installations, figurative sculptures and abstract drawings.
Spirals are a recurring motif in the work of Louise Bourgeois, including her sculpture, painting, and drawings from as early as the 50s through 2010 the year of her death. It has two directions. Where do you place yourself, at the periphery or at the vortex? The spiral is simultaneously "the fear of losing control" and the experience of "giving up control; of trust, positive energy, of life itself." In another book Bourgeois is quoted as saying "The spiral is important to me. It is a twist. As a child, after washing tapestries in the river, I would turn and twist and wring them... Later I would dream of my father's mistress. I would do it in my dreams by wringing her neck. The spiral -- I love the spiral -- represents control and freedom." In materials as diverse as wood, steel, bronze, latex, marble, plaster, resin, hemp, lead, ink, pencil, crayon, woodcut, watercolor, and gouache, Bourgeois investigates every imaginable manifestation of the spiral, from graphic patterns to graphite whorls, wobbly orbits to chiseled vortices, twisted columns to coiling snakes, staircases, and pyramids. The cursive blue-paper word drawings, in English and French, complement the purely visual works by conveying the spirit of Bourgeois' poetry in extraordinary pictorial forms.
Features approximately 80 writings by Louise Bourgeois, which, combined with
eight extensive scholarly essays turns our critical understanding of Bourgeois
work on its head. This title shows the enduring presence of psychoanalysis as
a motivational force and a site of exploration in her life and work.
Nothing to Remember! is a facsimile of 22 delicately-colored prints on hand-drawn music paper created between 2004 and 2006 by Louise Bourgeois. This artist's book follows an earlier publication, Ode à l'Oubli ( Ode to Forgetfulness ), which Bourgeois made entirely out of fabric, using linens and clothing remnants from her past. Nothing to Remember! is an immediate collectible, with only limited quantities available.
Tracing artists' increasing use of their bodies as subject and actual material of their artworks, this title charts the rise of new forms of expression such as Body Art, Happenings, Performance and Live Art.
