Iconic artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois died in Manhattan, New York, on Monday 31 May. Her obituary in the New York Times says that "Fragility and fierceness were...the twin poles of Ms. Bourgeois’s art."
It also points out that 1966 marked both a significant shift in her career, "when she was included in an exhibition at the Fischbach Gallery in New York, 'Eccentric Abstraction', organized by the critic Lucy Lippard", and the start of her "long involvement in the nascent feminist movement, about which she had passionate but ambivalent feelings."
Her 1982 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art was the Museum's first retrospective of any woman artist's work. It "brought Ms. Bourgeois, in her early 70s, the critical and popular acclaim that had long eluded her."
"In an art world where women had been treated as second-class citizens and were discouraged from dealing with overtly sexual subject matter, she quickly assumed an emblematic presence. Her work was read by many as an assertive feminist statement, her career as an example of perseverance in the face of neglect."
1 comment:
I know it's reasonably common in France, but still... 'Bourgeois' is a pretty unfortunate surname.
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