The eccentricity (or genius) of sculptor Louise Bourgeois

She was born on the same day as the Christian Jesus Christ and they called her "the spider woman". Louise ourgeois earned the nickname and the reputation of being one of the best contemporary artists without breaking a sweat, and without being too well known outside art circles either. Educated at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre, she had a go at almost everything (artistically speaking) and had no problem jumping from painting to sculpture and from there to visual art. Today we're focusing more on the person than on the artwork, because plenty has been written about that already.

Retrato de Louise Borgeois hecho con bolígrafo y grafito por Arturo Espinosa

From hatred to the genius of Louise Bourgeois

There may be a tendency to talk about an artist's work without mentioning their context, but Bourgeois' context was as emotionally unstable as it was positive in practical terms. When our dear Louise was born, way back at the start of the 20th century, being a woman and an artist was no easy task, with no female role models to follow and considerable family pressure to get married. That was how it went, unless, of course, you were the daughter of the owners of an antique tapestry gallery. In that case, two things could happen: either you loathed art or you loved it. With Bourgeois it was the second.

From her childhood to her youth, little is known of her artwork, since she wasn't really recognised until decades later, when she was already over 30 and had enjoyed a modest success with her exhibition Femme Maison. The dehumanisation of modern art was the central theme but, in fact, back then it wasn't well understood that a woman should talk about women and the repression they're subjected to. Imagine that now. If it still stirs up controversy, in the 1940s it must have been like throwing a molotov cocktail in the middle of the street... even in Paris.

La Maman: the spiders of Louise Bourgeois

If Freud had lived at the same time as Bourgeois he'd surely have tried to bring up some father-daughter trauma to explain that recurring business of making spiders. But at this point, well into the 21st century, we know perfectly well that we shouldn't pay this gentleman too much attention. What we should remember is Maman right there at the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, terrifying and fascinating the tourists. And in fact, the sculpture (this one and all the spiders) is an open tribute to her mother, the great weaver, protector and predator.

https://vimeo.com/339116020

Practically all the art of this great painter kept to a series of themes from her childhood: her father's cyclothymic character and her mother's strength (and fragility, at the same time). In a way, an artist is nothing but the result of their experiences, their fears and dreams, of the past turned into a forerunner of the future and, if there's genius, of glory. Rest in peace, spider woman!