Louise Bourgeois – Spiderwoman

November 13, 2007

Rare access to this disturbing, brilliant and witty artist – another unique and formidable older woman.

At 96 she was still working, still at the cutting edge, still confronting young artists every Sunday at the salon she held in her New York apartment.

Childhood memories produced fantastic and disturbing sculptures of giant spiders and poured-plastic body parts. As a girl, like all her family, she restored old tapestries, which surface in her art – she creates haunting rooms full of childhood fear and menace but also faded beauty.

Later she worked with Leger and knew surrealists like Breton and Duchamp. In New York she emerged as an artist in her own right, bringing dread, desire, sex and the psyche into her work.

We visit Louise Bourgeois’s salon, not long before she died, see some of her very last works and talk with Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Stella Vine and others who have been inspired by this strange, profound yet mischievous artist.

“fascinating film”
Time Out

“impeccable”
The Times

REVIEWS

LINKS