Louise Bourgeois 2nd Edition - CANCELLED [Hardcover]

Marie-Laurie Bernadac (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2004

Louise Bourgeois' work defies classification, oscillating continually between abstract geometry and organic reality. She uses a range of materials from wood and plaster to marble and latex to explore universal themes-the body, childhood, maternity, and sexuality-from a deeply personal perspective, imbuing them with extraordinary emotional intensity. This comprehensive and richly illustrated monograph is chronological in approach, and brings together her works from early sketches and paintings to later sculptures and installations with which she has astonished the art world. Author Marie-Laure Bernadac skillfully weaves her insightful text with Bourgeois' own words from articles, films, and interviews to provide a unique and highly accessible study of this fascinating and complex artist.

With full-color illustrations of Bourgeois' most recent exhibitions and installations, along with fully updated bibliographic and biographical information, this new edition of the first significant monograph devoted to the artist pays homage to the life's work of this pivotal figure of the contemporary art world.

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Flammarion; 2nd edition (September 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 2080108832
• ISBN-13: 978-2080108838
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,571,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book for a good price, May 29, 2009

By 

Juggs "Norris" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Louise Bourgeois (Paperback)

This, like many of the other Phaidon books is very well organized. My only complaint is it doesn't have many pictures of her soft sculptures. Other than that, I would highly recommend to someone who wants an introduction to her work.