The Erector of Sculptures

Louise Bourgeois

       When we look at the 20th century in terms of societal conditions, we see a wide range of issues that are counterintuitive to America being known as the land of opportunities and freedom. Many of the issues stemmed from the inequalities between men and women in the globally accepted societal structure of patriarchy. These inequalities were observed in the political, social, and economic realms and ones’ status, as well as freedom to act within each of the realms, was severely limited to whether the individual was a male or a female- females typically being the ones who experienced the short end of the “inequality stick.” One individual, however, managed to break the mold and lived a life relatively free of any restrictions or limitations in society and went on to become quite successful. Despite this individual’s relative lack of societal obstacles to overcome, she (yes, a female) based her art on the everyday problems that women would face as members of a patriarchal society as well as some of her own childhood experiences. This woman, as I would like to call her, is The Erector of Sculptures- Louise Bourgeois.

Maman, 1999 Louise Bourgeois
A sculpture at the Guggenheim that was
installed after the Guerrilla Girls advocated for
Louise's inclusion at the museum.

Almost like a gift to the world of art, Louise Bourgeois was born on December 25, 1911 in Paris, France. She was born to Josephine Fauriaux and Louis Bourgeois who happened to be artistically inclined and owned an antique tapestry gallery. It was at this point in time where Louise would come to fall in love with art and decide to pursue it as a career. Louise went on to study geometry at Sorbonne and art at a variety of institutions including Ecole du Louvre, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Académie Julian, and Atelier Fernand Léger to name a few (PBS, 2012). After her training, Louise went on to open her own print store within her father’s gallery where she sold her engravings and paintings. It was also where she would meet her husband, Robert Goldwater, who convinced her to immigrate to New York and, consequently, become exposed to the feminist art movement in America. Following her move to the United States, Louise shifted her focus from painting to sculpting and would make a living off of her artistic prowess as a successful exhibitionist and professor at numerous colleges and high schools in New York. Louise continued to create masterpieces even up until a few weeks before her death in 2010. All of her success didn’t come easy, though. Of course Louise was met with resistance in both the art world and society in general and was denied the chance to exhibit her art like many other female artists had been in the past. But, between her sheer skill as an artist and support from other successful artists and art groups (like our friendly neighborhood Guerrilla Girls), Louise was able to make a name for herself and become known as a successful feminist artist. Even though much of her success came about during the later stages of her life, most of Louise’s inspiration came from her childhood experiences.

Louise’s childhood was littered with memories of her father casually having sexual relationships with any woman he wanted and that her mother would turn a blind eye to the fact that one of his mistresses was actually “residing with[in] the Bourgeois family” (TheArtStory, 2013). This, of course, was extremely influential in almost every one of Louise’s paintings and sculptures, drawing inspiration from “her relationship with her parents and the role sexuality played in her early family life” (PBS, 2012). The emotionally scaring nature of her father’s actions and mother’s intentional ignorance left Louise angry and confused and caused her to channel her artistic abilities into producing art that discussed the ideas of “traumas…the feminine psyche…beauty…sexual desire and confusion” (TheArtStory, 2013).  Louise’s art, which reflects her childhood experiences, isn’t only representative of her feelings towards her father and what he did; it is a survey of the male’s role in society and her critique of masculinity and power.

Seven In Bed, 2001 Louise Bourgeois

Couple, 2004 Louise Bourgeois

To convey her thoughts effectively through her art, Louise relied on sculpting as a medium and used a variety of materials such as “rubber, wood, fabric…metal…glass, paper, cement, and marble” (Crone, 1998). By creating sculptures, rather than painting, Louise was able to create physical manifestations of her thoughts and feelings in ways that ink and a canvas could not. Some were obviously reminiscent of her childhood and were not directly political statements, but the sculptures were still an effective method in portraying her traumatic memories nonetheless. Examples of this are Seven in Bed and Couple which blatantly depict her father’s daily activities while Les Mains/The Welcoming Hands is a bit more subtle, but still probably refers to her father when she was a child. Some of her other sculptures were much more symbolic and really stirred the societal pot and got people talking about them. One such example of this is her sculpture Fillette (1968) which is, as one critic would describe it, “a big, suspended decaying phallus, definitely on the rough side” (Chadwick, 340). Louise’s decision, as a woman, to create a decaying phallus in the artistic world of men was bold to say the least. By making a phallus with her own hands Louise symbolically demonstrates a woman’s power over a man while, at the same time, satisfying her own curiosity in regards to holding the object that gave her father (and all other males) the “power as a male” to do whatever he wanted to do. It was at this point that Fillette, and the culmination of all of her previous pieces, “became a rallying point for many younger women artists” (Chadwick, 340) and helped to make a push for the acknowledgement of women in the field of art and society in general.  Some of these women who rallied behind Louise and were greatly influenced by her work are Eva Hesse, Lynda Benglis and Sophie Calle- all sculptors who explored the ideas of feminism, the body, and identity.

Fillette, 1968 Louise Bourgeois

Les Mains/The Welcoming Hands, 1996 Louise Bourgeois

        Louise Bourgeois’ work, although it is quite obvious now, was “recognized only in retrospect…as a metaphor for gender (in politics and society)” (Chadwick, 324). Yes, there is the possibility that her some of her pieces may only be sentimentally significant to her and that they might not have been created with the intent to stir up a debate- but the situations depicted her sculptures were so relatable to other women in society that Louise managed to pave the way for other courageous female artists to follow suit. Louise’s art not only challenged the standard of art in the 20th century, but it still manages to stand out even to this day. Not many females have ever sculpted and displayed as vivid of a phallus prior to Louise and I doubt that anyone in today's  society would have the “balls” to do it today. Louise Bourgeois has not only managed to successfully tell story of her own life through her sculptures, but she has told the stories of many other women too- standing as a pinnacle of feminine strength within a society still largely dominated by men.




Works Cited

art21. "Louise Bourgeois." PBS, 2012. Web.
         <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/louise-bourgeois>.
The Art Story. "Louise Bourgeois." The Art Story Foundation, 2013. Web.                                              <http://www.theartstory.org/artist-bourgeois-louise.htm>.
Crone, Rainer, and Petrus G. Schaesbe. Louise Bourgeois: The Secret of the Cells. Prestel,             1998. Print.
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. 4th. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.