Louise Bourgeois [Hardcover]

Frances Morris (Editor), Marie-Laure Bernadac (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2008

Louise Bourgeois is among the most prominent contemporary sculptors. Strongly influenced by surrealism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism, her work focuses on the exploration of her psyche. A recurring theme is her troubled childhood and difficult relationship with her father. Despite early success, she did not receive widespread acclaim until the ’70s. Her 1982 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art was the museum’s first-ever retrospective of a woman artist. Since then, she has exhibited worldwide, producing a beguiling body of work featuring spiders, cages, architectural sculptures, drawings, and found objects ranging in scale from intimate to monumental. Her staggering variety of mediums includes rubber, wood, stone, metal, and fabric. In 1993, she represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. This book accompanies a major retrospective touring exhibition. An overview of Bourgeois’s career, it covers individual works, art movements, other artists, and themes that have played an important role in her life and art, with text by acclaimed authors and critics, including Julia Kristeva, Elisabeth Lebovici, Frances Morris, Mignon Nixon, Linda Nochlin, Robert Storr, Alex Potts, Marina Warner, and Deborah Wye. Exhibition Schedule:Tate Modern, London (October 11, 2007–January 20, 2008) Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (March 5–June 2008) Guggenheim Museum, New York (June 27–September 28, 2008) LAMoCA (October 25, 2008–January 25, 2009) Hirshhorn, Washington (February 28–June 7, 2009 tentative)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One contributor to this retrospective asks: How is it that an artist whose career spans some seventy years continues to appear vital and contemporary...? Bourgeois's work, sometimes abstract and sometimes not, is sculpture or installation, may be sewn out of fabric or carved out of wood, and is ever intimate, feminist, eccentric and interesting. The difficulty of memorializing the work of such an extraordinary living artist is handled through a glossary of terms, a neat trick that puts Etching next to Existentialism and Materials next to Maternity. This treatment pairs shorter and longer essays by art critics with excerpts from Bourgeois's diaries and interviews, providing a deep and textured sense of the artist's biography. Personally and creatively, Bourgeois was deeply affected by her mother's tolerance of her father's affair with the daughter's own tutor. Bourgeois's work doesn't follow any clear trajectory, so the episodic nature of this presentation displays her work appropriately. It can be difficult to connect a piece of text to the hundreds of reproductions of the artist's work (many in full spreads), but the overall impression is very effective—a suitable presentation for this intriguing and multifaceted artist. (Apr.)
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Review

"This A to Z glossary chronicles the intimate themes of her art and her many successes." ~Florida InsideOut

"An intriguing companion to the spectacular Louise Bourgeois retrospective...boasting some 240 illustrations, the book covers topics ranging from Anxiety to Fabric Towers to Surrealism..." ~France Magazine


“Constructed as an A-to-Z glossary of Louise Bourgeois’s life, work, philosophies, and insights, this comprehensive publication moves the reader from Maman to Mapplethorpe, primitivism to prostitution, and Sadie to surrealism, in a thought-provoking tapestry of essays, words, and images reflecting the artist’s prolific and engrossing body of work.” ~Choice Magazine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli; First Edition edition (March 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847831310
• ISBN-13: 978-0847831319
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 1.5 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bourgeois is great., November 18, 2008

By 

Chance A. Dunlap - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Louise Bourgeois (Hardcover)

this is the best work on this artist that I have found. great photos great text. organized in an encyclopedic type way. great buy.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dynamo of Creative Power, September 14, 2009

By 

jennifer johnson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Louise Bourgeois (Hardcover)

This book gives a succinct,yet expansive view into Louise as an artist,and touches on how she has been influenced by psychoanalysis,how it figures into her art,along with her fears ,emotions and her rage against her father.A snapshot of her ouevre in encyclopedic entries creates the structure of this book.Louise is a marvelously complex person,and you will see imagery rendered in wax,metal,fiber,embroidery,ballpoint pen drawings,plaster,bronze,wood,as well as installations she has created.One of the best books about her.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Louise Bourgeois Guggenheim Exhibition Catalog, February 5, 2009

By 

Judith S. Rae "JSR" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Louise Bourgeois (Hardcover)

I admire this brilliant, prolific woman artist. I've followed her career over her many years
and think this particular catalog captures her life and work in an amazing way.