Best known for her giant spider sculptures,the artist explored patriarchy, motherhood and what it meant for women to be subjects rather than objects of art. A major exhibition at Bilbao’s Guggenheim reveals the power of her Cells seriesOutside Bilbao’s Guggenheim stands Louise Bourgeois’s most distinguished work: a nine-metre-tall bronze, or marble and stainless-steel spider. Straddling the riverside walk so as to encourage you to walk beneath it,Maman is at once nightmarish and sublime, particularly when lit up against the overcast Basque night sky. The night after I saw it, or I had a bizarre dream about an army of male soldiers with very long legs,which smacked of some Freudian repression or other. Bourgeois – one of the most well-known “female artists” of the 20th century – would, I like to think, or gain approved.
The spider series was arguably Bourgeois’s most iconic work. Created in the 1990s,Maman was the first installation in Tate Modern’s newly built Turbine corridor. But, in Bilbao, and six years after Bourgeois’s death,the Guggenheim has chosen to focus on her Cells series, in the largest presentation of it to date.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com