Third Text

ISSN: 0952-8822 (Print) 1475-5297 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctte20

Louise Bourgeois in Conversation

Suzanne Isabelle Trimble (aka Bella Land)
To cite this article: Suzanne Isabelle Trimble (aka Bella Land) (2009) Louise Bourgeois in
Conversation, Third Text, 23:6, 779-788, DOI: 10.1080/09528820903371180
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528820903371180

Published online: 07 Dec 2009.

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Third Text, Vol. 23, Issue 6, November, 2009, 779788

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Louise Bourgeois in Conversation

Suzanne Isabelle Trimble
(aka Bella Land)
On Christmas Day, 2009 Louise Bourgeois turns ninety-eight, her physical
longevity matched by her legacy. Artistic expression has been Bourgeoiss
way of life since childhood and her restless production continues to this
day, with drawing a constant outlet. Her hands also etch, carve, mould,
cast forms into metal, stitch, embroider and construct whilst her oeuvre
includes sculpture, installation and performance. In an increasingly trendobsessed artworld and society, Bourgeois has uninhibitedly forged her
own artistic language through articulating difficult cathartic themes,
inspiring generations of artists to mine their depths.
Travelling alongside the major art movements of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, Bourgeois has maintained her eclectic footing,
consistently exploring and interpreting her subconscious world; feelings so overwhelming she has said her body feels too small to contain
them. Recurring psycho-emotional themes include: love, sex, death,
the fragmented self/other, the mind/body relationship, multiplicity,
gender relations, anger, violence, fear, abandonment, betrayal, guilt
and ultimately the constant task of restoration. The latter, she states,
leads to forgiveness.
In Bourgeoiss span of work, a multiplicity of themes, questions,
conditions and contradictions, from the personal to the universal, are
reflected in a complex array of philosophical, linguistic and geometric
approaches. The matter of medium or style is always subservient to the
need to communicate her inner state.
One could say that Bourgeois is her art. Bourgeois states that her
work is dictated by the world of her emotions and has admitted that her
need to create is such that not doing so is intolerable to her. Her body of
work is thought to be the most extensive self-portrait created by an
artist; yet mysteriously her aesthetic language is not solipsistic in effect,
but manages an existential universality. She confesses or exposes the
hidden shame, forgotten secret, broken promise and deepest fear.
Anyone who has suffered, felt marginalised or misunderstood can feel a
connection with her work hence her global appeal.
Elements of surrealism are often attributed to her work due to the prevalence of dream-like symbolism, but though she knew the surrealists,
Bourgeois never joined the movement or subscribed to their manifesto of
Third Text ISSN 0952-8822 print/ISSN 1475-5297 online Third Text (2009)
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DOI: 10.1080/09528820903371180

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Louise Bourgeois with her parents Louis and Josphine circa 1915, photo: courtesy of
Louise Bourgeois Archive

beliefs. Exploring dreams, delirium, emotion and the subconscious is not

the exclusive territory of surrealism and Bourgeois has famously said that
it is everyones birthright to express themselves. For her, this is done
through accessing the unconscious and transmuting it into creative expression, thus providing emotional and psychological liberation.

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Bourgeois had her first retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in

New York City in 1982. She was seventy-one. Due to her independence
and the fact of being a woman in a male-dominated art scene, it took this
long for Bourgeois to gain institutional success and recognition. It was at
this time also that the artist revealed the highly emotional details of her
formative years, which, she admitted, so profoundly informed her work.
These autobiographical elements have since become standard lore and the
focal point of much contemporary art criticism of her work.
Louise Bourgeoiss retrospective was also the first that MOMA had
ever given a woman artist. This represented not only a triumph for Bourgeois, but for all women, particularly artists. Perhaps it also helped
slightly dent the bias against eclecticism and age. Despite her advanced
years, her innovations were still startling, iconoclastic and vital. She had
at last conquered the artworld and become an icon to yet another
generation of artists eager to find their voice. Bourgeois has since had
retrospectives at the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, the Guggenheim
and most major museums around the world.
Through her work, Bourgeois has not only unlocked the Pandoras Box
of her childhood but also consistently commented on social mores she sees
as constricting, including sexist attitudes, history and laws. Freedom, it
seems, is the thing she most values, and aims to protect and achieve.
Bourgeoiss corpus gives rise to a complex matrix of conditions, frustrations and paradoxes from the personal to the universal. But rawness
of impression is not to be mistaken for naivety or simplicity of conception. Psychology is firmly interwoven in the emotional fibre of the work;
the forms her feelings take are their own vocabulary. A seam of contradictory impulses runs through everything; a coding that is multilayered,
particularly in the installation work where multiple viewing positions are
offered.
Bourgeois will employ any material or approach necessary for the
expression of her ideas. Her influences include philosophy, linguistics,
symbolic logic, geometry, humour and irony. The material outcome of
Bourgeoiss self-exorcism has the disconcerting effect of implicating the
observer, for the intensity of the work itself is such that even the act of
looking can feel complicit with a crime or shameful condition. But the
work is to be witnessed needs witnessing despite any air of secrecy;
otherwise why would she exhibit? Impolite or awkward emotions such
as guilt, regret, rage, despair and the feelings of not fitting in, not being
heard or being neglected are displayed, if not honoured.
I was first introduced to Bourgeoiss work through a book of her
drawings, then a catalogue of her sculptures accompanied by an interview. Her eclectic range of materials and sometimes seemingly naive
subconscious images attracted me, as did the way she thought about and
responded to questions.
My first direct exposure to the artwork itself was a retrospective of
her lifes work. I had no idea it would be such a palpable experience. At
times, the installation work reminded me of Joseph Beuys. The tense
relationships of organic materials the way they breathed and called
out. But with Bourgeois, no shamanic salve is being offered, no direct
comfort. If there is salvation it is a double-edged sword and not easily
available. The knife and guillotine appear regularly in her work. In
Bourgeoiss lexicon, the guillotine symbolises the present severing the
Le Suicide Threat , 1987, watercolor and ink on paper, 30.4 cm 15.2 cm, private collection, courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York, photo: Christopher Burke

Untitled, 2002, tapestry and aluminium, 43.1cm 30.4cm 30.4 cm, courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve, Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth, photo: Christopher Burke

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Le Suicide Threat, 1987, watercolor and ink on paper, 30.4 15.2 cm, private collection,
courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York, photo: Christopher Burke

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783

Untitled, 2002, tapestry and aluminium, 43.1 30.4 30.4 cm, courtesy Galerie Karsten
Greve, Cheim & Read and Hauser & Wirth, photo: Christopher Burke

past. Cutting is a recurrent theme disfigurement, agony, insanity often

metaphorically coexist with existential liberation. Iconic pieces such as
Spiral woman, Hysterical Arch and many of her cells attest to these and
other contradictory states.
The violence and dismemberment, which figures strongly in Bourgeoiss work, is generally attributed to the personal dynamics of her
early home life. What is perhaps not considered enough is that at the
outbreak of the First World War she was a small child and saw the
horrifically mutilated veterans upon their return. Her own father was
The Birth, 2008, gouache on paper, 37.1 27.9 cm, private collection, courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York, photo: Christopher Burke

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The Birth, 2008, gouache on paper, 37.1 27.9 cm, private collection, courtesy of
Cheim & Read, New York, photo: Christopher Burke

wounded. At the hospital where her mother took the young Louise to
visit him, there were men with arms, legs and eyes missing, and these
impressions fed into her psycho-emotional iconography. Not much has
been said of this historical influence on her work, although Bourgeois
herself has recalled how disturbing it was.
Additionally, her scholarship in geometry, philosophy and mathematics forms part of her expressive language. She received a Baccalaureate in Philosophy at the age of fifteen her dissertation was on Blaise
Pascal and Immanuel Kant. No matter how simple a Bourgeois piece
may appear it always draws on multiple influences. When a spiral
appears in the artists work it is not only an embodiment of the
Fibonacci sequence but also the twist of strangulation or wringing out. It

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is unsurprising, therefore, that the work of Louise Bourgeois has

attracted the analysis of psychologists, philosophers and linguists.
And what of transcendence? Ideally, catharsis necessarily leads to a
spiritual state transcending mortal concerns. Even Bourgeoiss most
immersive and claustrophobic pieces (such as many of her cells) have
transcendent elements, which may be physically indicated or conceptually figured. Metaphorical riddles and mazes create uncomfortable
excavations of the viewers emotional landscape.
As Bourgeois approaches one hundred I wondered whether all this
emotional purging had at last freed her? Had her artistic purging
allowed her to forgive her father for his callousness and infidelities? I
could find no record of anyone asking about this or her attempted
suicide after her mothers early death and how she felt about her father
saving her life by jumping into the Seine after her and pulling her out.
A show entitled La Rivire Gentille in 2008 at Hauser and Wirth in
Zurich may contain references to this unspoken part of her history.
Composed of forty-two mixed media sheets a metre long, they derive
from a text Bourgeois wrote in the 1960s reflecting upon her childhood.
The river can be seen as a comforter, a pacifier or, as the gallerys synopsis suggests, a place to commit suicide. Some of the works bring to
mind embryonic connection while others seem to suggest drowning.
Bourgeois is fond of rivers and has always resided near them. The tapestry business of her parents depended upon the river, where they would
rinse and wring the tapestries. The river is also a symbol of life, death,
memory and forgetting. Often as she wrung the tapestry, she imagined it
to be the neck of her tutor, the mistress of her father.
While Bourgeoiss mother, her influence and predicament, figures
monumentally in her work, it is hard to find much that she has said
about her own experience of motherhood or the two sons she bore; nor
does she offer much insight into her marriage to her late husband, the art
historian Robert Goldwater. Her Femme Maison, made during her
married years, presents a woman trapped by a house. Is this how she
felt? Meanwhile, the 20062008 public sculpture fountain entitled
Father and Son seems to speak of familial obscuration and vulnerability
with water as a medium of veiling and revealing. The water is operated
on a timer and alternates gushing on one side of the fountain to the other
every hour, marked by the ringing of a bell. Bourgeois would say that
this piece is about passage of time and its continuum. But was this piece
also alluding to her husband and sons?
Bourgeoiss interviews are typically witty, direct and incisive. Yet
underneath the assertiveness lies a vulnerability. She readily discusses her
life history, the inner codes of her artworks, and though funny and selfdeprecating at times, she can be abrupt when it comes to her dislikes.
With an inbuilt aversion to intrusiveness inherited from her mother,
open and confessional as she appears to be, there is an unspoken line one
must not cross.
Until recently, Bourgeois, in the eighteenth-century French tradition,
held a salon of artist gatherings every Sunday at her apartment in
Manhattan. These salons are now the stuff of legend and not surprisingly, after almost a century of social exchange, the worlds most
distinguished living artist has chosen to retreat from the world to
conserve her energy and devote her time to the making of art.
Louise Bourgeois, 2007, photo: Dimitris Yeros Burke

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Louise Bourgeois, 2007, photo: Dimitris Yeros

Whenever Bourgeois discusses her work, it is apparent that her

mental and verbal agility are on par with her handling and appropriation of physical materials. Poetic metaphor, recollection and philosophy
are intertwined, psychosexual and emotional subject matter deftly
interpreted through various intellectual disciplines.
The following interview was granted in February 2009 and conducted
by email. I was told that my enthusiasm had persuaded Madame Bourgeois
to accept my request. I could pose five questions. Unable to narrow my
questions to five, I sent ten and asked that Bourgeois select the five she liked

787

best. As I had hoped, Bourgeois answered all ten. Some of the questions
were multilayered in order to cover as much ground as possible. Bourgeois
answered these selectively. Though minimally worded, her answers say
much, both in what she says, as well as that which remains unsaid.

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Bella Land You have stated that artists have to be useful, that they
have to fill a role and the idea that art is a guarantee of sanity. Your
work has inspired generations of artists to delve into and express their
personal experience and emotions. As an artist moved by your authenticity, fluency and profundity of artistic language as well as the palpable
energy in your work, I would love to know what you are working on at
this time, how you see your role as artist, how art is a guarantee of sanity
and what purpose art can serve today?
Louise Bourgeois Artists have access to their unconscious; the expression
of this is knowledge, truth and beauty.
BL Your art has always defied any categorisation and you have
constantly explored different dimensions, materials, ideas and formats.
Eclecticism and multi-dimensional approaches are atypical and rarely
seen in one single artist in the mainstream artworld. Why do you think
this is and how do you think you got past this bias?
LB I have nothing to prove. I live in a world of emotions and my only obligation is to express them. I will try any material, shape or form to get there.
BL How do you feel about being ninety-seven and do you have an idea
of what has maintained your vitality and inspiration all these years?
LB I feel that there is still a lot that I want to say.
BL You have said that your art is one of restoration and that sewing is
akin to a kind of forgiveness. You have exorcised, sublimated and metamorphosed the dramas of your childhood through many media and
expressions. Does the sanity this continuous process provides, make
space for you to forgive the past transgressions of others and yourself or
is the mending and restoring more of an emotional release of pain experienced through articulating the emotional dynamics in artistic form?
Are there areas of your childhood tapestry, which have been healed or
forgiven through the alchemy of your art?
LB I know my art keeps me balanced, as I am a person of emotional
extremes. You have to understand, I am not interested in the past per se. It
is that the understanding of the past is a tool that helps me in my present
difficulties. This is what psychoanalysis is. You have to understand why you
do what you do. My work is exclusively interested in the here and the now.
BL You have made many sculptures to re-create the people you miss.
Has doing so helped you to heal in the areas of loss or grief and what are
your thoughts on the existence of what we call the soul?
LB I have a fear of abandonment. I dont want to be separated from people
or things that I love. I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual.

788

BL Are there any ways in which you see elements of a game as well as
synchronicity in life? If so, in what significant ways do you feel that you
have followed or broken rules, or made new ones in order to play in your
own way?

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LB You have to pay for your mistakes. I take responsibility for what I do,
what I say and what I think. Whats the use of blaming somebody else?
BL Your mother is a primary figure in your work, in a place of honour.
She was your best friend and protector and you admired many of her
qualities. In thinking about cherished times with your mother, what
comes to mind? Can you share some insight into the human aspects of
your closeness? Did your mother have a hand in teaching you how to
draw? Do you recall some of your first drawings, what they were like,
how you felt when drawing them and if your mother saw them, how she
responded to your drawings?
LB As a child, I drew in the missing parts of the tapestries. This gave me
the feeling of being needed and useful. This pleased both my parents. My
mother loved to repair things, and I think I inherited that from her.
BL Your love of geometry as a language goes back to childhood and
weaves throughout much, if not all your work. Geometric formulae, as
well as shapes such as the spiral, recur in your work with potent metaphorical and emotional associations. Does geometry provide restoration,
healing and possibly universal principles?
LB With geometry, you have a consistent set of rules. There is certitude,
which is the exact opposite of the emotional world I inhabit.
BL Youve said that your emotions are too large for your body to
contain and that you create art to get rid of them. In getting rid of them,
what kinds of dynamics take place, for example: emotional catharsis?
Detachment? Epiphanies such as the retrieval of a lost memory or a
spontaneous vision? How do you experience your process of release and
metamorphosis in the making of art?
LB Im not sure there is any cure for what ails me, but I do know that my
art helps me to feel better. It gets me through the day and thats enough.
BL Ever since your childhood, you have been concerned with seeing how
things go together, come apart and can be repaired. You have also said
that your art is a form of restoration. In consideration of your idea that
the past guillotines the present, what issues do you feel society faces
today, from your perspective of restoration?
LB Everyone has a destiny, and everyone has to claim it. We have to
accept the fact that we do not get what we want even though, perhaps,
we shouldnt even want it. We are all wounded. We are all flawed. We
are all violent. We all want to be loved. You have to consider yourself
lucky to be born, and thats the way I feel.
I am grateful to Louise Bourgeois and Wendy Williams for their valuable assistance
and to my mother, Alma Land.