Press Release
“My best friend was my mother; she was sensible,
intelligent, patient, comforting, reasonable,
choosy, sophisticated, indispensable, neat and
useful – like an ariagnée [French for “spider”].
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois’ Sculpture “Maman” on Tour
Bern, Bundesplatz, May 24 – June 7, 2011
Zurich, Bürkliplatz, June 10 – July 31, 2011
Geneva, Place de Neuve, August 3 – August 28, 2011
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) was one of the most important and influential artist personalities of
our times. On December 25, 2011 she would have celebrated her 100th birthday. On this occasion
the Fondation Beyeler is presenting an exhibition with a concentrated selection of her work. A
highlight in advance will be provided by an installation of her renowned spider sculpture Maman
(1999) on Bundesplatz in Bern, Bürkliplatz in Zurich, and at a site in Geneva. Thereafter, Maman
will be on view during the duration of the exhibition in Berower Park at the Fondation Beyeler in
Riehen/Basel (Sept. 3, 2011 – Jan. 8, 2012).
The equally fascinating and threatening monumental bronze sculpture of a spider, titled Maman, is
a key work for an understanding of Bourgeois’s art. From the 1940s onwards she drew these
insects and depicted them in prints and sculptures. The largest of these spider sculptures is
Maman, a monumental piece measuring 927.1 x 891.5 x 1023.6 cm.
Maman is a complex sculpture that has various levels of meaning. On the one hand, it is an
homage to her mother, who worked as a restorer of tapestries in Paris, and hence, much like a
spider, continually renewed woven tissues. On the other hand, for Bourgeois the spider
represented a universal symbol for the endless story of life, whose principle is continual renewal.
This makes Maman a superb monument to the existence of change. The aspect of mother and
maternity also becomes clear in the depiction of the spider as a mother. Under her body she bears
a sac made of wire, holding ten eggs carved of marble.
After impressive presentations in and in front of the Tate Modern London (2000-07), the Jardin des
Tuileries in Paris (2007-08), the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (from 2001), the Rockefeller
Center in New York (2001), and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (2001), Maman will
be on view for the first time in Switzerland. The installation of the world-famous spider sculpture is
itself impressive; wherever it was shown it became a public success, attracting throngs of people.
Press images at: http://pressimages.fondationbeyeler.ch
The Maman project was enabled by generous support from JTI.
Our thanks are also due to the René and Susanne Braginsky Foundation, the Georg and Bertha Schwyzer
Foundation, and Galerie Kornfeld und Cie., Bern.
Press Release
Louise Bourgeois
À l’infini
September 3, 2011 – January 8, 2012
To mark her 100th birthday, the Fondation Beyeler is devoting an homage to Louise Bourgeois
(1911-2010), one of the most significant and influential artist personalities of our times. Comprising
about twenty items, the exhibition will represent a concentrated selection from the artist’s oeuvre
and address its key themes: an involvement with other artists, a concern with her own biography,
and the translation of emotions into objects of art. In addition to works and series of works from
renowned international museums and private collections, more recent, previously unexhibited
works – including the late cycle À l’infini (2008) – will be on view. These will be supplemented by
groups of pieces from the Beyeler Collection. Especially revealing insights will be provided by
juxtapositions with paintings by Fernand Léger and Francis Bacon, and sculptures by Alberto
Giacometti. These artists, with whom Bourgeois maintained personal contacts, were influential and
inspiring for her.
Our homage to Louise Bourgeois focuses on her amazing ability to cast a spell over the viewer
with her art’s poetic moods, trains of association, and unique manner of visual narration. For a long
period she negated the opposition, so central to modern art, between figuration and abstraction,
and enriched contemporary art with a highly personal brand of objective meaning. This holds
especially for the legendary Cells, an example of which will be on view.
Born in Paris, Bourgeois united several epochs in her personality and biography: that of the proud
and sensitive Parisian bourgeoisie, which gradually declined in the course of the 1920s and, for
her, was embodied in the problematic figure of her father; her experience of Parisian modernism as
an art student; the shift of the art scene from Paris to New York, in which she was materially
involved after her move there in 1938; and finally, the inward and outward turmoil in the U.S. of the
day, including the great movement for equal rights to which she decisively contributed.
All of these lines of development and diverse experiences combined to shape her personality. This
is the sense in which the key work in the exhibition, À l’infini, should be understood – fourteen
etchings each of which features two converging lines. The basic form of this impressive and
moving work derives from the type of cloth that consists of at least two threads and can be infinitely
reproduced and varied. Seen in this light, history, too, might be understood as a tissue spun from
threads of memory. The symbol Bourgeois found for spinning filaments and eternal renewal was
the spider, which she associated with her mother. A sculpture from the renowned Maman series is
to be installed in the Fondation Beyeler park.
The exhibition was conceived together with Louise Bourgeois (d. May 31, 2010) and curated by Ulf
Küster, curator at the Fondation Beyeler, in cooperation with the Louise Bourgeois Studio, New
York.
Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010)
Chronology
1911
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois is born in Paris on December 25th. Her parents run a gallery for the
restoration and sale of tapestries. The family rents an apartment at 172 Boulevard Saint-Germain on the
fourth floor, above the Café de Flore.
1919
In May, the Bourgeois family acquires a property in Antony. The property includes gardens that are
separated by the banks of the Bièvre River whose tannin is needed for the dying of the tapestries.
1921–1927
Louise attends the Collège Sèvigné and the Lycée Fénelon in Paris. At the age of twelve, Louise is asked
to use her drawing skills to help out in the tapestry workshop.
1923–1928
The Bourgeois family rents the Villa Marcel in Le Cannet. They spend the winters at Le Cannet and the
summers at Antony. Louise attends the Lycée International in Cannes. Louise and her mother become
friendly with Pierre Bonnard.
1932
Bourgeois enters the Sorbonne briefly to study calculus and geometry, receiving the Baccalauréate in
Philosophy from the University of Paris. Her dissertation is on Blaise Pascal and Emmanuel Kant.
Through family friends, Louise travels along with a medical group to Scandinavia and Russia.
Louise's mother Joséphine dies in Antony.
1933–1938
Bourgeois studies in various artists’ ateliers in Montparnasse and Montmartre. Roger Bissière and
Fernand Léger, among others are her teachers. In 1934 she makes a second trip to Russia, this time to
see the Moscow Theater and the work of the Russian Constructivists.
Bourgeois exhibits a painting at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon des Artistes Français.
1936
Bourgeois rents her first apartment at 31 rue de Seine. From May 1937 through February 1938, André
Breton will open and direct the gallery Gradiva in the same building.
1937–1938
Bourgeois moves to a first floor apartment at 18 Rue Mazarine. She studies art history at L'École du
Louvre in order to become a fully certified docent at the Louvre.
1938
She partitions off part of her father's space at 174 Boulevard Saint-Germain in order to open up her own
art gallery dealing in prints and paintings by Delacroix, Matisse, Redon, Valadon and Bonnard. There she
meets Robert Goldwater, an American art historian who is in Paris doing further research on his doctoral
thesis “Primitivism in Modern Painting”. Robert Goldwater proposes to Louise Bourgeois, and they marry
on September 12th in Paris at the Eglise Saint-Sulpice.
1938–1939
Bourgeois moves to New York City with Robert Goldwater. They live at 63 Park Avenue.
1939
Louise and Robert return to France to arrange for the adoption of Michel Olivier, an orphan, who was born
in Margaux near Bordeaux in 1936.
1940
Jean-Louis Bourgeois is born to Louise Bourgeois and Robert Goldwater on July 4th.
1941
Alain Matthew Clement Bourgeois, Louise's and Robert’s second son, is born on November 12th.
1945
Bourgeois has her first solo show, “Paintings by Louise Bourgeois” at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New
York City. She curates “Documents, France 1940-1944: Art-Literature-Press of the French Underground”
at the Norlyst Gallery with the help of Marcel Duchamp.
Bourgeois is included in a group show of work by women artists called “The Women” at Peggy
Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in New York.
Bourgeois exhibits for the first time at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
1949
Bourgeois's sculptural debut “Louise Bourgeois, Recent Work 1947-1949: Seventeen Standing Figures in
Wood” takes place at the Peridot Gallery in New York.
1950–51
Robert Goldwater receives a Fulbright Scholarship (to research in France) in 1950. The Bourgeois family
returns briefly to France in 1951 and lives in Antony. They travel to London where Bourgeois meets
Francis Bacon.
1951
Louis Bourgeois passes away. Louise is devastated by her father’s death as well as with having to deal
with the closing of the family business.
Alfred Barr acquires Sleeping Figure (1950) from the Peridot Gallery for the Museum of Modern Art in
New York.
During the summers of 1953, 1955, 1957 and 1959 the family returns to Paris.
1955
Louise Bourgeois becomes an American citizen.
1962
The Bourgeois family moves to West 20th Street, where Louise Bourgeois still lived until her death.
1970
Bourgeois begins her involvement with the feminist movement, taking part in demonstrations, benefits,
panels and exhibitions.
1973 Bourgeois’s husband Robert Goldwater dies.
1980
th
Bourgeois acquires her Brooklyn studio at 475 Dean Street on May 10 . Originally a garment factory, she
inherits the contents (e.g. sewing machines, furniture, doors and shelving) and incorporates some of these
into her future work.
1981
Louise Bourgeois acquires an abandoned house (circa 1860) in Staten Island for her son Michel. Michel
never occupies the house. Louise keeps it empty, turning it into a sculpture called Maison Vide. Maison
Vide was also the title for one of Bourgeois’s personages from the 1940s.
1982
“Louise Bourgeois: Retrospective” opens at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition,
curated by Deborah Wye, is the first Retrospective given to a woman artist at MoMA.
1989
The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris exhibits Articulated Lair (1986) and Henriette (1985) in the
exhibition “Magiciens de la Terre” at the Grande Halle La Villette.
Henry Geldzahler curates “Louise Bourgeois: Works from the Sixties” at the Dia Art Foundation in
Bridgehampton, New York.
Organized by Peter Weiermair, Bourgeois has her first European Retrospective at the Frankfurter
Kunstverein, “Louise Bourgeois: A Retrospective Exhibition”.
1991
Bourgeois exhibits six Cells (Cell I – Cell VI) at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. The exhibition is
organized by Lynne Cooke and Mark Francis.
1992
Louise Bourgeois exhibits Precious Liquids (1992) at Documenta IX.
1993
Bourgeois represents the United States at the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. She exhibits her
first large scale Spider at the Brooklyn Museum.
1995
Marie-Laure Bernadac organizes “Louise Bourgeois: Pensées-plumes” at the Musée National d'Art
Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris presents the
traveling exhibition “Louise Bourgeois: Sculpture, Environments, Dessins 1944–1994”.
1996
Bourgeois is included in the Sao Paulo Bienal curated by Paulo Herkenhoff and Jerry Gorovoy.
1997
Bourgeois is commissioned by the French Government to make a large scale work Toi et Moi in cast and
polished aluminum for the architect Dominique Perrault's new Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
The Fondazione Prada in Milan exhibits “Louise Bourgeois: Blue Days and Pink Days” organized by
Pandora Tabatabai Asbaghi.
Violette Editions in London publishes Louise Bourgeois: Destruction of the Father / Reconstruction of the
Father (Writings and Interviews 1923-–1997), edited and with texts by Marie-Laure Bernadac and HansUlrich Obrist.
The National Medal of Arts is presented to Bourgeois by President Clinton at the White House. Her son
Jean-Louis Bourgeois accepts the award on her behalf.
The Arts Club of Chicago exhibits recent sculptures as well as The Insomnia Series (1994–1995) in
“Louise Bourgeois”.
1998
The Moderna Museet in Stockholm exhibits Passage Dangereux (1997) in “Wounds: Between Democracy
and Redemption in Contemporary Art”. Passage Dangereux is subsequently shown at the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum in Soho in “Premises: Invested Spaces in Visual Arts & Architecture from France
1958–1998”, organized by the Centre Pompidou.
1999
Bourgeois receives the 1999 Praemium Imperiale Award in the sculpture category from the Japan Art
Association.
th
Bourgeois participates in the 48 International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, La Biennale di Venezia,
Venice, Italy, curated by Harald Szeeman.
2000
Bourgeois is commissioned for the inaugural installation at Turbine Hall of Bankside Power Station,
opening as the new Tate Gallery of Modern Art. Bourgeois displays a thirty foot steel and marble Spider
called Maman (1999) and three steel architectural towers called I Do, I Undo and I Redo (1999–2000) that
employ the use of staircases and mirrors and incorporate fabric and marble sculptures within the interiors.
2001
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao purchases the thirty foot bronze, stainless steel and marble Spider
Maman (1999) and installs it outside of their titanium paneled building designed by Frank O. Gehry.
The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg mounts a Bourgeois Retrospective, their first exhibition
ever of a living American artist. The thirty foot bronze Spider sculpture Maman (1999) and two eleven foot
Spider sculptures (1996) are installed in New York City’s Rockefeller Center, organized by the Public Art
Fund.
2002
Galerie Hauser & Wirth in Zurich exhibits “Louise Bourgeois: Works In Marble”, accompanied by a major
publication on Bourgeois’s stone pieces.
Bourgeois is represented by four of her Portrait Cells (2000) in “Documenta 11” in Kassel, Germany.
2003
Dia Center for the Arts inaugurates their new space in Beacon, New with an exhibition of plaster, latex and
bronze sculptures from the 1960s, along with The Destruction of the Father (1974) and the Cell Spider
(1997).
The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo acquires the thirty foot bronze, stainless steel and marble Spider Maman
(1999) and installs it outside of the newly inaugurated museum.
2004
Daros Exhibition in Zurich exhibits their extensive Bourgeois collection.
The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa acquires the thirty foot bronze, stainless steel and marble
Spider Maman (1999).
2007–2009
The Tate Modern in London organizes a Retrospective of Bourgeois’s work that travels from there to the
Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington DC.
The French Legion of Honor medal presented by President Sarkozy to Louise Bourgeois at artist’s
Chelsea home on.
2010
Fondazione Vedova in Venice exhibits a Retrospective of the fabric drawings, curated by Germano
Celante, “Louise Bourgeois: The Fabric Drawings”.
st
Dies on May 31 .
The Spider is an Ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother
was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was
in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly
presences that eat mosquitos. We know that mosquitos spread diseases and are therefore
unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
-- Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois
MAMAN, 1999
365 x 351 x 403"; 927.1 x 891.5 x 1023.6 cm.
Steel and Marble, unique
Bronze, Stainless Steel and Marble
Edition of six with one Artist Proof
Exhibition History:
Tate Modern, London "Louise Bourgeois: Inaugural Installation of the Tate Modern
at Turbine Hall" (5/12/00-11/26/00; steel)
Den Haag Sculptuur, The Hague, The Netherlands "Carnaval des Animaux"
(6/21/01-9/11/01; steel). The Bourgeois was installed in the Atrium of the Townhall
of The Hague.
Rockefeller Center, New York, NY "Louise Bourgeois: Spiders" (6/21/01-9/4/01;
bronze), organized in association with the Public Art Fund.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia "Louise Bourgeois"
(10/9/01-1/13/02; bronze), and for a period of extended loan.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain "Louise Bourgeois" (10/2/01-4/21/02;
bronze)
Playhouse Square’s Star Plaza, Cleveland, OH “Louise Bourgeois’ Spiders”
(6/02-9/02; bronze), organized in association with Cleveland Public Art, Inc.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark "Louise Bourgeois"
(2/15/03-6/22/03; bronze). "Maman" installed in Nytorv Square in Copenhagen.
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa "The Body Transformed" (5/15/03-10/12/03;
bronze)
Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI "Maman" (6/12/0311/1/03; bronze)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada "Noah's Ark" (6/12/04-10/3/04;
bronze); installed in La Cité de l'énergie, Shawinigan, Quebec.
Schlosspark Wendlinghausen, Dörentrup, Germany "Garden-Landscape
OstWestfalenLippe" (6/17/04-10/17/04; bronze)
Wilfredo Lam Center, Havana, Cuba "Louise Bourgeois: One and Others"
(2/4/05-4/26/05; bronze)
Museum of Modern Art, Ostend, Belgium "Beaufort 2006" (4/1/06-10/1/06; bronze
installed over the memorial stone of Ensor in the garden of the church Onze-LieveVrouw-ter-Duinenkerk).
The Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden "The Wanås Foundation: 20th
Anniversary" (12/1/06-8/31/07; bronze)
Tate Modern, London, England “Louise Bourgeois: Retrospective” (10/10/071/20/08; bronze). Traveled to the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
(3/5/08-6/2/08; installed in Tuileries by the Louvre Museum)
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy “Louise Bourgeois for
Capodimonte” (10/17/08-1/25/09; bronze)
Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina “Louise Bourgeois: The Return of the
Repressed” (3/19/11-6/19/11). Travels to Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil (7/7/11-11/13/11).
Selected Literature:
Morris, Frances and Warner, Marina. Louise Bourgeois (exhibition catalogue),
London, England: The Tate Modern, 2000. Steel reproduced on pages 8 (detail),
46 and 47.
Castro, Jan Garden. "Louise Bourgeois: Turning Myths Inside Out", Sculpture
Magazine, January/February 2001, Vol. 20, No. 1, pages 16-23 and cover. Steel
reproduced on page 21.
Sylvester, Julie (curator). Louise Bourgeois at the Hermitage (exhibition
catalogue), St. Petersburg, Russia: The State Hermitage Museum, 2001. Bronze
cast exhibited with steel sculpture reproduced on page 87.
Greenberg, Jan and Jordan, Sandra. Runaway Girl: The Artist Louise Bourgeois,
New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003. Bronze reproduced on page 64.
Storr, Robert, Paulo Herkenhoff and Allan Schwartzman. Louise Bourgeois,
London, England: Phaidon Press Limited, 2003. Bronze reproduced on page 4.
Théberge, Pierre. The Body Transformed (exhibition catalogue), Ottawa, Ontario:
National Gallery of Canada, 2003. Steel reproduced on pp 22-23 though bronze
exhibited.
Wachtmeister, Marika with Patrick Amsellem, Ingela Lind, Bera Nordal, Griselda
Pollock. Louise Bourgeois: Maman, Knislinge, Sweden: The Wanås Foundation,
2007. Bronze reproduced on cover and throughout publication.
Morris, Frances with essays by Paulo Herkenhoff, Julia Kristeva, Donald Kuspit,
Elisabeth Lebovici, Mignon Nixon, Linda Nochlin, Alex Potts, Rob Storr, et al.
Louise Bourgeois, (Retrospective exhibition catalogue), London, UK: Tate
Publishing, 2007. Steel reproduced on page 170 and bronze on page 253.
(Reprinted in 2008 for US venues of tour, and a version also published in French
by the Èditions du Centre Pompidou with supplemental images.)
Bernadac, Marie-Laure and Jonas Storsve with essays by Paulo
Herkenhoff, Julia Kristeva, Donald Kuspit, Elisabeth Lebovici, Frances
Morris, Mignon Nixon, Linda Nochlin, Alex Potts, Rob Storr, et al. Louise
Bourgeois, (Retrospective exhibition catalogue, with supplemental images
to Tate’s 2007 version, and in French), Paris, France: Èditions du Centre
Pompidou, 2008. Bronze reproduced on page 193.
Spinosa, Nicola (Introduction) with texts by Achille Bonito Oliva, Donald Kuspit,
Philip Larratt-Smith, Scott Lyon-Wall. Per Capodimonte Louise Bourgeois
(exhibition catalogue) Naples, Italy: Electa Napoli, 2008. Bronze reproduced on
pages 9, 22, 23 and 27 (detail).
Coxon, Ann. Louise Bourgeois, London, UK: Tate Publishing, 2010. Reproduced
on pages 6, 70 and 71.
Larratt-Smith, Juliet Mitchell, Mignon Nixon, Paul Verhaege & Julie de Ganck, Meg
Harris Williams. Louise Bourgeois: El Retourno de lo Reprimado, (exhibition
catalogue, Spanish Edition), Buenos Aires, Argentina: Fundación PROA, 2011.
Reproduced as plate 59.
Küster, Ulf. Louise Bourgeois, Ostfildern 2011. Appears October 2011.
Louise Bourgeois’s sculpture “Maman” on tour
Bern, Bundesplatz, May 24 – June 7, 2011
Zurich, Bürkliplatz, June 10 – July 31, 2011
Geneva, Place de Neuve, August 3 – August 28, 2011
The Maman project was enabled by generous support from JTI.
In the context of its cultural engagement, JTI supports projects worldwide, focusing on contemporary
art. In addition, JTI and the JTI Foundation facilitate programs in the fields of the environment, disaster
aid, and social welfare. JTI is a leading international tobacco product manufacturer which operates in
120 countries and has headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where it employs 700 people. In
Dagmersellen, Lucerne, it has one of the most modern cigarette factories in the world and employs
400 people.
Our thanks are also due to the René and Susanne Braginsky Foundation, the Georg and Bertha
Schwyzer Foundation, and Galerie Kornfeld und Cie., Bern.