Louise Bourgeois

Interview with Louise Bourgeois at her home in New York.

By Jennifer Burke

Introduction

While attending School of Visual Arts in New York 1992. I decided to ask the Artist Louise Bourgeois if I could interview her for an assignment which was to Interview an Artist and then do a presentation of the artist and their work.  I thought if I would ever have the opportunity to meet the artist Louise Bourgeois, now was the time. I had discovered the artist a few years earlier while taking the class "Women in Art" at School of Visual Arts.
The first piece of work that I ever saw of this artist was the well known work "The destruction of the Father" - 1974. Fig.1.

 Fig.1.      The Destruction of the Father-1974

The day I went to Louise Bourgeois Brownstone in New York for the interview it was a freezing cold day. I arrived at her house knocked on the door, Louise opened the door greeted me and I followed her through a hallway into a living room. She seemed so small to me for someone who produced larger than life creations. She offered me something to eat, she was very kind She wanted to know about me where I came from ........ She wondered how I was coping with living in New York while being so far from my home in Ireland. I felt she was very motherly, in fact when I was leaving her house after the interview she was concerned that I was not warm enough and insisted that I take a beret of hers to keep my head warm! I remember it smelled exactly the same as her home I treasured it.  She had a student photographer present who photographed us as I interviewed her.
During the interview she would take breaks and go into her kitchen which was just off the living room. I would gaze at a wall directly across from where I sat in the living room. The wall seemed to be covered in bookshelves which were filled with books papers small works. As I sat quietly waiting for her I could see her small frame through the glass in the door between the kitchen and living room as she paced and then suddenly she would return and take up where we left off. I felt she needed to do this as she became exhausted or rather overwhelmed with emotions that she was re-experiencing when she discussed works such as destruction of the father and her relationship to her work. These relationships were difficult for her and she really felt everything she was saying, (And I am sure at times my questions were frustrating I was young and opinionated and had no clue of what I thought I knew) She took the interview seriously. I felt she was sincere and very real, she was honest, she lived her art and was completely surrounded by evidence of this in her home it was as if she had no choice about it.

The Interview:

JB: What are some of the ideas behind your work?
LB: This is the subject of a book and I cannot answer this question in one sentence or even two!

JB: Is it possible to define art?
LB: Yes, art is a guarantee of sanity.

JB: What is the other for you and do you think of yourself as the other?
LB: The other is everything......everything! The French say there is the toi and the moi. I am very interested in the toi and in the relationship if possible between the toi and the moi. These relationships are very complex and I am trying to understand these relationships in my work.

JB: How do you give the other a voice in your work?
LB: My work is about others. I am extremely conscious of the toi as opposed to the moi. I am not interested in myself, but I am interested in how other people see me, and in the way I can be liked by others.

JB: Liked by others in you work?
LB: Liked by others in my person and I do this by offering the best I can be in my work, but it is a personal achievement that I want. If somebody asked me: would you rather have me like you or would you rather have me like your work? With the hundreds of pieces I have made I would say, I would rather that you like me.

Fig. 2. Femme Couteux 1982 

JB: I feel in some of your work you characterise the other as both male and female, you seem to combine both male and female attributes in your work for example "Femme Couteux-1982" Fig.2. Fig.5. 1969 and 1970. Is this one of the relationships between the toi and the moi that you mentioned?
LB: I am exclusively a woman. I believe in opposites and the differences between men and women. These differences are profound you are one or the other you cannot be everything to everyone for instance you are different from me, not all too different but you come from a certain background and I come from a different background and it is these variations that are going to be interesting to each of us, going back to the toi that I talked about I show some people who are not myself.....not everything is a self-portrait.

JB: When you think of theses variations and attributions of character did you combine them in the works  "Femme Couteux-1982" Fig.2. Fig.5. and  "The Fragile Goddess-1970" Fig.3.? Is the "knife" a phallic symbol?
LB: No this is a couteau which is a knife. The knife comes from a need to defend what she is carrying which is a child so this knife appears as a defense of her child.....that is not male. That is what you think.

JB: Why did you feel she needed this protection?

Fig.3. The Fragile Goddess 1970

LB: The "Fragile Goddess" Fig.3. is a weak person who has to carry a child, and it is too much for what she can do, so she is on the defensive. The "Fragile Goddess" Fig.3. represents a young girl who finds herself with child the fact is she is not up to the job, she is not up to the responsibility she suddenly has and she is supposed to defend what she carries and that frightens her. So she borrows the knife of the man. She is a woman on the defensive I agree with that, but this has nothing to do with the man, in fact she admires the man. I am not a feminist because I like men. I am afraid of them but I still like them. So she borrows the weapon of the man. She is very young and sees everything in black and white, this is very subtle. The "Fragile Goddess" Fig.3. is a frightened pregnant girl that is all she is.

                                           
  JB: What would you say about the work the "Fillette" Fig.4. 1968 ?

Fig.4. Fillette 1968

LB: What I have to say about the "Fillette" Fig.4. is that the "Fillette" Fig.4. does represent a male organ. It means that  if a woman has a man around, she is supposed to take care of her man, to cradle him this is why it is a fillette,  because fillette is somebody who is very young......(she pauses and thinks about it for a bit) yes, innocent and very young.....so you attribute these qualities to the male organ and you take care of your man. This has to do with my autobiography I have a Husband and three sons so I got used to it. I never had any girls and my way of getting along with everyone was to actually take care of them.

JB: And in return......
LB: And in return they would tolerate me, they would not kill me off...she laughs...But it was up to me to take care of them. That's what it means. So if you have a boyfriend the way to get along with him is to take him with a grain of salt, be nice to him, take care of whatever he wants, almost nurture him like a mother, basically that is what it means.

JB: And what will he do in return?
LB: He would make you feel important significant he would make you feel like a good woman like a good girl which is not easy to be. He would give you self-esteem. I assume in all my writings that the woman suffers from a certain lack of self-esteem.

JB: Can you comment on your quote: "A woman has no place in society as an artist unless she proves it again and again"
LB: This is an ancient quote of mine. But absolutely that is to say...it is not that men dislike women as the feminists try to prove. Men do not dislike women they do not see them, they do not conceive of them so if there is something you want to put across as a self-expression you have to say it again and again until they finally listen to you. I suppose it's not just that they don't see you, it is that they are self preoccupied.

JB: Would you talk about "The Destruction of the Father"- 1974 Fig.1.  in terms of the other?
LB: "The Destruction of the Father" Fig.1. comes from a difficult time at the dinner table when the Father would gloat, fill up and brag about how great he was. No one could shut him up. It made the children very tired listening to him brag  the macho this is the other the toi. The Macho problem I am still interested in. What constitutes the macho of man? How do you experience it? What do you do? What do we mean by that? It is a constant bragging right. It is because of that, I fancied taking this big hunk of a man trowing him up on the table where we were eating. Instead of eating the food we would eat him, so we would dismember him like a chicken, you pull the legs out, you pull the arms out, twist the neck and you cut off the neck, then gobble him up. This was not a constraint this was a fantasy a very pleasant one. He would never have had a chance, he would not know what happened to him.

JB: Do you think we can become what we fear, what we resent? Is fear something that motivates your work?
LB: Now that is a very good question. We are more than that, but fear and resentment are very important. Fear was not the motivation in "The Destruction of the Father" Fig.1. as you say, it was a Fantasy   But fear, resentment, loss, these are very important.

JB: So lets go back to the first question, your ideas behind your art...

Fig.5. Femme Couteux 1969

LB: No, no! I have no answer
JB: No?
LB: This is ironical...
JB: Why?
LB: Absolutely nothing when there is so much.





This interview was done in 1992. The focus was on Louise Bourgeois's earlier works. In 1993 she represented America in the Venice Biennale.

Nancy Spero

Interview with the artist Nancy Spero at her home in New York, 

by Jennifer Burke

Artist - Nancy Spero - 1926 - 2009

I did the below interview with Nancy Spero in 1992 while completing my last year at School of Visual Arts in New York City. When I first contacted Nancy she never hesitated to have me come by and interview her. When I arrived at her home/studio, I was taken aback about how idyllic the setting was in my view. She was in a kitchen area, which basically seemed to be just a small kitchen table, where I imagined many a discussion took place. And right across the space which was the other half of the room lay a very large canvas against the wall and  in front of it stood the artist Leon Golub her husband. Being quite young I though how amazing a life this is, fantastic space, buzzing with work energy and ideas, and having that to share with someone you cared deeply about. During the interview Leon would speak at times and finish Nancy's sentences. They had a great comradery, not just as husband and wife, but one of mutual respect for each others work, Leon understood the struggle Nancy put upon herself for the kind of work she did, for her opinions, for being different, for giving a voice to the victim, for not being afraid to force people to look at something that they may not like.
Nancy and I sat at that little kitchen table and spoke for a long time, she was just as interested in me and what I had to say. I felt she had a very nurturing side to her, I felt very at peace in their home. I will always feel privileged to have shared a Sunday afternoon with Nancy Spero and had the opportunity to watch Leon Golub painting in the background.....below is the interview.


The Interview

JB   Lets start big! What is the meaning of art to you?

Fig 1 Head with phallic, The WAR series - Nancy Spero

NS   It is all I can do, this thing called art. I do not have the capabilities of doing anything else. Recently and building up since the seventies I am fortunate to get attention, before that I was not really a burgeoning artist. I was participating in the art world by exhibiting and producing. What is art...something that is on the edge. The wonder of art is that it is symbolic you can act out or say things, that could not be achieved on a one to one daily basis. Art has to do with the school* the group you associate with, the other challenge is the art world. Leon Golub interjects at this point with a comment: We Nancy and I were restless, both of us figurative painters which was still acknowledged in Paris.......allot that was going on in the art world  did not get into the media here! Except minimalism  it was an illusion of power......what would life be like without art! We (Nancy and Leon) were in Chicago the "second city" we were the rebels resistant to the abstract expressionism which was the New York school, De Kooning, Pollack, Franz Kline the New York hierarchy.

JB   What is the other to you? with your views of not being recognized in the earlier days, did you feel like the other?

Fig 2 The WAR Series - Nancy Spero

NS   Not in the gender sense. In the art scene being the other is the artist if I am interested in the extreme, the edge, that my mind set is not working in the norm. I feel different - the artists lifestyle, the stigma of being understood and misunderstood at the same time. Yes you could say as a woman artist but I did not realize as early as you. During the revolution(the women's movement) of the late sixties I realized within this analysis of power that we(women) were subservient to male revolutionaries  so came W.A.R women artists revolution.(Fig 2)

JB   Considering the war series its subject matter and imagery are you trying to rewrite women's history-herstory therefore guaranteeing your own place is history?

NS   In a way as you mention in the war series(Fig 2). I used an image of a tongue(Fig 1) sticking out, represented me being angry with the world. It is a phallic tongue. I used Artaud as a vehicle for my message because he had been silenced by the bourgeois society. I felt lost as an artist in my society. I had seen nothing like the mental torture and the physical anguish of Artaud, his pleas to be listened to, moved me very much. I felt it clever and funny my responding to him......he would have hated me doing this. As artists we use things as stepping stones to get our message across. I decided what I wanted to focus on was the status of women, a hot subject, very controversial but not an excepted topic. The everyday occurrences in the lives of women keeps me very interested. I would not like to be brushed aside! I am talking for myself but I want to get into the public domain where it can be understood rather than a personal biography.

Fig 3 The first language - Nancy Spero 

Fig 4 The first language - Nancy Spero

                                   

JB   A Lot of articles discuss your turn towards Artuad is because of his "hysterical" voice - the Greek word hysteria means uterus and has been used to connect a woman's sexuality with madness  Do you think this is true, is your voice one of hysteria?

NS   No. I relate it to being silenced, being on the edge in a selfish society where no one is (was) generous to a living artist. I relate it to language using the image of the tongue sticking it out at the world bringing my personal outside where it can be understood. I was concerned with this going back as far as 1962 with the great mother piece, which deals with the birth of language.(Fig 3, Fig 4)

JB   I like that you are illuminating women's language in your art. Should art represent gender? Some female artists are always fighting the male view that dominant in sectors of the art world. Should your art be used to point this out?

NS   Yes, they should listen! We have spent our time in art history in the media looking at male art. It is time they look at our artwork and listen to our voice., be forced to look The reins of power have been very carefully under control by the masculine so there is a fear of appearing too feminized, its less valuable. This control is by the macho artists like Al Held, Jackson Pollack  Franz Kline.......but there are the sensitive ones....like Artaud. The ancient birth in the woman series deals with this, it is very symbolic of a different kind of power that is language. It shows this birth of language and if it is cut off that is then like a death, like the myth of the young woman who witnesses a man murder her own sister he then cuts off her tongue so she can not tell on him. The woman series is about the polarity of opposites, of ourselves in control of our bodies, moving in the world rather than being the victim  After Artaud and the woman series it changed to the actual being in control rather than anger. the shift was from internal psyche-to investigations (black paintings) becoming externalized with the sense of reality having a voice. Finding a voice with which to say there are possibilities. There are two stages of victimage:
1.   The voice of Artaud which is realistic but internalized and needs to find a way to get across.
2.   The voice that is external becoming powerful more male.

JB   With some of the images of women in your work, are you expecting them to live up to the traditional images of warrior-male, like "Running Totem Woman"?

Athena - Nancy Spero

NS   This is complex, the images are more complex than that. The sexes change. I have taken images of men and changed it into women. Sometimes women are very masculine looking. the images of the past are of men making men look more powerful. I have felt free to show women as powerful even what we would consider masculine looking. The image of Athena with her helmet, spear and shield  The goddess of wisdom and menura. I used everything from fashion model to old scrubbing lady. I have reasons some come out and some are arbitrary.

JB   In an article from Art Week Nov 26 1988 Andrea Liss writes about your "Celebration of the body as it's central archetypal icon is clearly at odds with such feminist practices of representation as those carried out by such artists as Barbra Kruger and M. Kelly for example in which they refuse to picture the female body or allow and condone a position of male spectator-ship for the viewer/voyeur....would you like to comment on this?

NS  They do not condone my artwork. I can not say at all if my artwork is detrimental to women. Their(feminist group of eighties) tactics are to treat the subject of women as elliptical. That group of the early eighties are more gung-ho seeing the image of women as object all the time throughout art history for the delight of men, that they disapprove of my imagery of women. Their attitude is very different being one of theory with art practice, mine is theory to a point but I do not want to illustrate it! It is correct that use of female imagery would allow this spectator ship  but the male spectator would get caught up short and realize that this is woman as activator, that my work is not averting the male gaze but running past oblivious or defiant-independent.

JB  Are you ready for another quote from the same article by Andrea Liss?
"Attempts within Spero's projects to unify womankind into one harmonious kinship also reduces the important historical , ethnic and economic differences among women....can you comment on this?

NS   I am trying to achieve the opposite as a matter of fact. I want surprises! Tensions! Shocks! Shocks of recognition, that these images are out of context, you have to take a second look to see what is there.

JB   In some of your work, the body is placed on the canvas, paper......in a way that  leaves allot of space around it. Can you talk about the body and the importance if any to that space you give it?

NS   I was interested in putting these images into space, this started with Artaud being isolated in his pain, in his otherness, a sense of disconnection from society. this format was more technical while the ideas are more of utopia in a way woman as antagonist to move freely in space. I do like to think of my artwork as a continuum, open-ended.

JB   I feel that some of your images are like butterflies that rise above the official discourse to be heard and taken seriously, can you comment on this idea and on the process of creating this work?

NS   In Spain I did an installation on the fourth floor of an old baroque building. I used soft plates to press images on the hard surface of the walls. These images found themselves in unexpected places right out onto the terrace. That was a beautiful ruin which appealed to a romantic side of me. One of the images which was both humorous and sinister floated on the wall like she had wings and I thought of her as a butterfly, but not just beautiful because she was sinister as well.

JB   Why did you become an artist?

Leon Golub 

NS   I was encouraged by teachers in grammar school, not by my parents.
Leon Golub  shouts across the room "There is no other area we could go into!" they laugh.
NS   I had a certain need to become an artist its intangible. In the beginning it did not seem desirable, but I was pulled in, drawn in by the visual. Its a hands on thing using the mind, its the challenge of the blank page, the blank canvas, whatever, its like a mania, a Frankenstein,  we all create monsters!
Leon Golub   (pointing to his side of the studio and then to Nancy's side) "On one side you have corruption and evil while on the other you have purity and decency"

JB   Can you comment on the art world today?

NS   Its just a can of worms.

JB   What do you think people are thinking of you and your artwork these days? That is if you care?

NS   I think they have changed their minds! Fortunately they are looking. They think I'm aggressive on some level.....you never really know, you just get an inclination of which way the wind is blowing. appreciation but still a certain amount of resistance.......that is pretty neat. I sell my work but not enough for the amount of press I get. I can see the resistance but people have put up a few bucks.
An artist can spend many years underground (no recognition) and when they surface, they will be questioned: where have you been all these years? Because of this there is a lot of bitterness and few rewards.

Inspired by the artist Louise Bourgeois to put down my paint brushes and create an installation

Mulling over the idea of creating an installation


I want to share the artist Louise Bourgeois with you, her work is influencing a work I am focusing on at present. Although this Artist has always had an impact on my work in general, it has only been through the early stages of MULL that I have rediscovered the artists work and this work has directed me to: finally finding a solution for choosing the right medium/materials and media to create my next piece of art work. Below is a link to a media release by the Guggenheim museum in New York titled:

"FULL-CAREER RETROSPECTIVE OF LOUISE BOURGEOIS PRESENTED AT THE GUGGENHEIM THROUGH FALL 2008" discussing the life work of Louise Bourgeois. http://www.guggenheim.org/images/content/pdf/new_york/press/louise_bourgeois_press_kit.pdf

As I mentioned earlier I am in the process of reviewing Louise Bourgeois for MULL, and during this process of revisiting the work of this artist I have decided on a creative solution/choice in order to put a physical dimension to an idea I have had for a few years. To date I could not start creating any art for this idea as the medium I have relied on (painting) is not the right choice for this project. So I have now decided to put down my paint brushes and focus on creating an installation. I really connect with Louise Bourgeois work and I am planning to create my installation using her work, in particular "The Cells" as a starting point for my installation. In a media release by Lauren Van Natten, The Guggenheim New York, she states:

The cell (Eyes and Mirrors) is one of a series of installations which Bourgeois began making in 1989. The Cells are typically constructed from a mixture of such salvaged architectural materials as old doors, windows and wire mesh combined with found objects and sculptural fragments. As a result of their elemental materials, simple form and large scale, the eyes convey a sense of monumental force, both inviting and repelling the viewer’s gaze.

Cell-Louise Bourgeois

                                                                             
I want to process my ideas and gather my sketches, thoughts which I have been "mulling over" for some time now and then combine these ideas with a number of choices for the media/materials required to create this installation. The installation, will be multi-sensory, it will have a strong physical presence, becoming a work that engulfs'/cannibalises the viewer, they(the viewer) will literally enter the artwork and become part of the artwork. . I have been finding additional creative solutions from my fellow MA-participants. David Phelan's work has helped me to address adding a dimension to the installation that is required, The installation will need to have a video and sound dimension and when I had the opportunity to view some of Davids work I found another creative solution. http://pinterest.com/jenniferburke94/installation/

Still from "The Artist is Present"

I am looking forward to working with Aine and Jean on MULL, and the required analysis is a great opportunity to evaluate this work and be influenced by their (Aine and Jean)work and by the artists they recommend Aine introduced me to the artist Marina Abramovic, in particular a Film titled "The Artist is Present" This Film discusses and documents Abramovic's work. In ways she is similar to Louise Bourgeois, exorcising demons fears and pain, but she has chosen to use her physical body as her media rather than using a representation of her body.

I have been toying with the idea of creating a work in which the viewer becomes part of it, the viewer can enter it, exist in it, becoming a "live material" if you will. Similar to Abramovic using her body as a medium. Abramovic also touched on the idea of having the audience become part of her performance piece at a performance in MoMA,

Its interesting the process of how artists arrive upon creating their work or a body of work, initially it can be a very daunting exercise. The blank canvas is very intimidating an empty space can taunt. Once I come up with an approach to give a creative and a physical life to my ideas, it becomes a kind of full steam ahead. This seems to be one of the ways I know that I am in the right direction as I have started the creative dialogue The first words are spoken and the piece I am working on communicates to me if you will. The work itself becomes a creator and begins to communicate with the artist. When the finished work resides in a public space the viewer has a dialogue also, it is this interaction that I am very interested to focus on when I show the installation.

I will continue to put together my sketches, ideas etc for this installation and post it on my blog in order to get your thoughts.