Louise Bourgeois

Overview

Louise Bourgeois is one of the forty artist who has a display at Tate Modern as part of the ARTIST ROOMS collection. His exhibit is made up of three rooms, each one is outlined here with a brief description.

Background

Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist known for her sculptures and installation art. She was born in Paris in 1911 and was fortunate to create artwork until she died in 2010.

First Room

Right as you walk in, don't forget to look behind you an up as there is a large spider three fourths and off center up the wall just daunting looking down on you.

Second Room

10 am is When You Come to Me is located to your right after you walk through the first room into the largest of the three roomed gallery. It is a series of twenty sketches of her hands and her assistant, Jerry Gorovoy's hands. She finished creating this watercolor and pencil masterpiece in 2006. They were created over time reflecting her fascination with how small her hands were in comparison to how large Jerry's hands were. The title references 10 am because that was the time Jerry would arrive at her studio.

On the opposite wall are sketches of what appears to be red arteries or veins throughout sixteen large paintings which span the whole wall. the artwork is titled ‘À L’Infini’ which translates to infinity, echoing the message of showing connectivity between human life whatever it may be, making the viewer think of veins, umbilical etc. In the same room is yet again another of her spider sculptures, this one much larger than the first. Spider was created in 1994 out of bronze and was made in reference to her mother who died when she was young. The 'Spider has a granite egg in her sack, revealing Bourgeois’s interest in the creature as an image of the strong mother, which she thought her mom to be.

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  "10 am is When You Come to Me"

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  "Second Room of Louise Bourgeois Gallery"

Third Room

In the last room of the exhibit, a range of artwork hangs and many are in a display case including Untitled. The fabricated torso of a woman lays on its back with a medal food beater ejecting from what would be the neck. No other descriptions or stories went along with this piece of work, allowing the viewer to interpret at their own will. Above this piece of artwork is another piece of work titled Untitled and completed in 2002 as well. It appears to be a medal lemon juicer with a tiny sculpted head on top of it.

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  'Untitled'

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  'Untitled'