From Publishers Weekly
French-born Bourgeois emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, yet the nearly 60 years of adventurous work in sculpture, drawing, engraving and installation reproduced here reflects an admitted attempt to repair the childhood she escaped. In 150 illustrations (50 in color), we find a haunting, enigmatic exploration of sexuality and the home: ladders that lead only to the ceiling; a giant steel spider whose egg sac is a jar of blue fluid; arrays of abstract white marble forms that simultaneously suggest male and female genitalia, often placed in enclosed, almost soothing, roomlike settings. Bernadac, curator of graphic arts at the Paris Musee National d'art Moderne, treats Bourgeois's uncanny mix of domestic comforts and erotic terrors as pointing to the ultimate imbrication of our desires into the structures we create, formal or familial. Her interpretations, while sometimes didactic and often overshadowed by the artist's own commentary, provide a welcome chronological overview of this remarkable and still evolving career. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
This elegant volume is the second book about Bourgeois to appear in recent months, evidence of a surge of interest that Bernadac succinctly describes as "inversely proportional to the neglect" Bourgeois suffered for decades. Bernadac, former curator of the Musee Picasso, offers convincing explanations both for the art world's persistent blindness to Bourgeois' startlingly original, sensual, and challenging sculpture and for the sudden recognition of its power, integrity, and courageous beauty. Bernadac successfully combines biography with criticism throughout this chronological overview, enriching the experience of viewing Bourgeois' art, from her highly symbolic works on paper to her newest work, the "cells," mysterious and dramatic large-scale installations. These daring works have occupied the indefatigable Bourgeois since she entered her eighties five years ago. Fiercely independent, adept at creating provocative abstractions out of myriad materials, Bourgeois is "unclassifiable" and profoundly compelling, qualities attributable, Bernadac believes, to Bourgeois' perception of art as fetishistic. For Bourgeois, the making of art is a magical and curative act, deeply emotional and erotic, thus resoundingly universal. Donna Seaman


Midwest Book Review
Louise Bourgeois, born in Paris in 1991, has spent the majority of her creative life in the United States. She occupies a unique place in the history of modern sculpture as a quasi-mythic point of reference for an entire generation of contemporary artists. Though linked stylistically to both Brancusi and Gicometti, Bourgeois' oeuvre defies classification, oscillating continually between abstract geometry and organic reality. Using a wide range of materials, from wood and plaster to marble and latex, Bourgeois explores universal themes (the body, whole or in parts, childhood, maternity, and sexuality) from a deeply personal perspective, imbuing the inert matter with extraordinary emotional intensity. Today, interest in Bourgeois' work is greater than ever, as evidenced by numerous successful traveling exhibitions and retrospective. s Louise Bourgeois is a comprehensive and richly illustrated monograph, chronological in approach, bringing together her works from early sketches and paintings to the most recent sculptures and installations with which she has astonished the art world. Marie-Laure Bernadac weaves her insightful text with Bourgeois' own words from articles, films, and interview to provide a unique and highly accessible study of this fascinating and complex artist. Louise Bourgeois is a highly recommended addition to community and academic artbook collections.


Book Description
American sculptor, painter and printmaker, born in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois is an exceptional figure in the contemporary art world. Her career spans some seventy years and touches upon such key moments as Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and feminism. After a lifetime of little artistic recognition, Bourgeois now enjoys cult status. An extraordinarily influential sculptor, she has worked, often experimentally, with a huge variety of materials. She is equally admired for her intimate drawings, often combining fragments of text, and her highly personal writings, which often address her long and complex life story. Themes such as the Other, the feminine and the masculine, and the body - as well as her own specific biography - spin a tangled and intense life-long body of work of unusual profundity.


Language Notes
Text: English, French

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