Contemporary Art in Context; Louise Bourgeois, Insomnia Draawings. Lecture by Dr Alison Rowley.

Our study last week was particularly focused upon the surrounding culture going on around the artist William Kentridge, during the time that he was creating his artworks of Felix etc.  In this lecture we will drill down a little further into the psychology of some artworks, and in particular we will look at the work of Louise Bourgeois and her insomnia drawings.  The importance of the theme of these drawings lies closely with those of William Kentridge.  The ways and methods, not only in the sense of the narrative, but the materials themselves (black and white) were used very successfully by William Kentridge.  With regards to Louise Bourgeois it is interesting that she was still producing sculpture until her death in 2010.  As an artist she only came into prominence during the 1990s, even though she was producing work as early as the 1930s.

In her work named "Fillette" (1968), which is a work made from latex over plaster and is one of her most famous works, which is based on the appearance of a little girl, but it is also being created clearly like a phallus.


In another of Louise Bourgeois's works entitled "Maman" (1999) which can be found outside the Louvre, Paris Gallery, it is very similar to the work spider created in 1997, made out of steel, tapestry, glass and other materials.     The sculpture, which depicts a spider, is among the world's largest, measuring over 30 ft high and over 33 ft wide (927 x 891 x 1024 cm). It includes a sac containing 26 marble eggs and its abdomen and thorax are made up of ribbed bronze. Maman is a regular French

word used informally to denote 'Mother'.   A copy of this work can also be seen at the Tate Modern, Turbine Hall.  The original was cast in steel, with six subsequent additions as casts in bronze.

"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 mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother."
                 - Louise Bourgeois, (Retrieved from the Tate Modern Website, 16 Feb-2015).

A whole book has been written on Louise Bourgeois's spider by Meike Bal.

It is also worth considering the works "Cell" (i.e. Eyes and Mirrors) 1989 to 1993.

In her series entitled personages series, 1947 and the works Foret (Night Garden) she made all of these in New York in order to quote 'keep her company.  In her 1970s work "Femme Maison", this is a clear statement of feminism.  This may have come from the time that to Louise Bourgeois attended Stanley William Haiters Atelier 17 in Paris during the 1940s, during which time she completed the work "he disappeared into complete silence" 1947.

After not much success in her newly adopted home during the 1940s of New York, she joined  the Amarican Abstract Artists group in 1954, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko and others.  By this time there were also many surrealists including Marcel Duchamp who had moved to New York.  However they were not interested in Louise Bourgeois's work as a woman, and therefore she developed a strong interest in trying to change opinion and improve the situation through feminist statements.

It is sad that after her death, there was a huge exhibition of Louise Bourgeois's works at the fruit markets in Edinburgh.  In particular focus was her drawings which in 2013 brought a completely new dimension to her work.

These insomnia drawings were created between November 1994 and June 1995, during which time she made over 220 drawings (a book is available in the Huddersfield University library which details each of these drawings), the original's are now in the demo's collection in Switzerland.  These drawings have now become some of the most important works.  They have been written about extensively to, and parallels can be drawn to the work of sleeplessness in Kafka's and other artists which is of particular interest.  Kafka said "dreams are of infinite richness for a radical encounter with oneself.  It is a crossing of sleep with wakefulness, the insomniac can enter a phase of total concentration."  And there is also this sense of loneliness to the insomniac.  The drawing allows you to do something differently.

Much of the above can be seen in the book by Elizabeth Grantham.

The Louise Bourgeois abstract drawings still appear quite organised.  They have been classified as surrealist automatic drawings for example by those such as Paul Klee and his automatic drawings and the statement taking a line for a walk.

Elizabeth Grantham talks about the two states of mind of consciousness but also what you can't see.  It is a special sensation in her subconsciousness in a state of ambivalence in plenitude and the dual state of calmness and anxiety.

The very essence of drawing the pens on lutes; the freedom of how work is constructed tends to make work when very tired become more abstract.  Consider the writings of Sigma and Freud and the subject of is split consciousness and unconsciousness.  He stated that dreaming flushes out our anxieties.  Louise Bourgeois was intensely anxious and the knowledge of dreams shows this.  The between state of insomnia produces art that is quite unique amongst all artists.  To catch such special images (like in the comment of William Kentridge when he says that the creative part is done in the walk between the ease of the camera), it is very similar to Louise Bourgeois and the state of fluidity captured in between dreaming and waking.

Water and fluidity play highly in the work of Louise Bourgeois, which can be clearly seen in the insomnia works themselves.  An interesting question may be posed in that what is the value of drawing with pencil and paper in the new technology age.  I feel that the spaces in between, as in William Kentridge's statement during the walk, may actually be lost.  The anxiety of Bourgeois is from her abandonment by her father early on in her life.  These anxieties can also be explored further as the subject matter truly is a study of truth and trauma, memory and experience, both in her art and her writings as recorded by Elizabeth Grantham.