"In order to express unbearable family tensions, I had to express my anxiety with forms that I could change, destroy, and rebuild."
The family home, the network of relationships among the members of the family, and the child's anguish make up the "childhood motivations" which are the basis of Louise Bourgeois' art. "Domesticity is very important. I think it is overwhelming. It has to be practical, patient and skilled," she writes. In Louise Bourgeois' work, we are often faced with the presence of subjects that are not immediate figures of desire but they position themselves clearly as operations of desire. The world of Bourgeois' sculptures is that of tangibility. "This is not mere 'parole antique.' I work with the present. Eternal, universal and ever-present emotions. Especially the emotions of violence, jealousy and fear."
Bourgeois' sculptures often blur the distinctions beween interior and exterior, between body and mind and explore the nature and function of memory. Still productive even in her nineties, her work continues to speak to the ways we use our bodies and minds to construct identity-making experiences out of social interaction.
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