Full Answer
What is Louise Bourgeois’s Maman?
Standing outside of the Tate Modern at one point, Louise Bourgeois’ extraordinary sculpture, Maman ( Mother ), is a 30-foot-tall spider crafted of bronze, marble, and stainless steel. It is one of six such spiders built by the acclaimed artist who was 95 at the time of their design.
Where did Louise Bourgeois first exhibit her art?
Maman, her 30 feet high spider, was not exhibited until 20 years later at the Tate Modern in London. When Tate Modern opened its doors in 1999, the museum commissioned Bourgeois as the first artist to exhibit her art in the massive Turbine Hall.
Why is Louise Bourgeois at Tate Modern?
When Tate Modern opened its doors in 1999, the museum commissioned Bourgeois as the first artist to exhibit her art in the massive Turbine Hall. Maman consisted of a tall steep spider sculpture representing both protection and benevolence.
Why is Louise Bourgeois considered a surrealist?
Like female surrealists of her generation, Louise was known for channeling pain and her experiences into the creative concepts of her masterpieces. These highly charged feelings allowed her to produce her deeply meaningful artwork with the goal and intention of evoking emotional responses and reactions from her audience.
Where is the original Maman sculpture?
Tate ModernThe sculpture was created in 1999 by Bourgeois as a part of her inaugural commission of The Unilever Series (2000), in the Turbine Hall at London's Tate Modern. This original was created in steel, with an edition of six subsequent castings in bronze....Maman (sculpture)MamanDimensions9271 x 8915 x 10236 mm5 more rows
Where is Maman spider now?
Maman is currently displayed outside of the entrance to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario after being purchased by the Gallery for $3.2 million in 2005. Maman, according to Bourgeois, represents a female spider who carries her white marble eggs beneath her.
Where is the spider Louise Bourgeois?
Spider (Bourgeois)SpiderMediumBronzeSubjectSpiderDimensions440 cm × 670 cm × 520 cm (175 in × 262 in × 204 in)LocationGarage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow3 more rows
Where is Louise Bourgeois from?
Paris, FranceLouise Bourgeois / Place of birth
Who is Louise Bourgeois father?
Louis BourgeoisLouise Bourgeois / FatherEarly life. Bourgeois was born on 25 December 1911 in Paris, France. She was the middle child of three born to parents Joséphine Fauriaux and Louis Bourgeois.
What is the Maman made out of?
BronzeMarbleStainless steelMaman/Media
What's the biggest spider in the world?
the goliath bird-eaterWith a leg span nearly a foot wide, the goliath bird-eater is the world's biggest spider. And it has a special defense mechanism to keep predators from considering it as a meal.
Why does Louise Bourgeois like spiders?
Perhaps influenced in part by her early years at the tapestry restoration business, Bourgeois once explained that she chose the spider as a subject because its traits reminded her of her mother.
When was Louise Bourgeois born?
December 25, 1911Louise Bourgeois / Date of birthLouise Bourgeois was born December 25, 1911 in Paris to Louis Bourgeois and Joséphine Fauriaux. The family, including Bourgeois's older sister, Henriette, lived on Boulevard Saint Germain, where Louis and Joséphine continued the Fauriaux family antique business by opening a tapestry gallery.
Was Louise Bourgeois married?
Robert GoldwaterLouise Bourgeois / Spouse (m. 1937–1973)Robert Goldwater was an art historian, African arts scholar and the first director of the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, from 1957 to 1973. He was married to the French-born American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Wikipedia
Who were Louise Bourgeois parents?
Josephine FauriauxLouis BourgeoisLouise Bourgeois/Parents
How old is Louise Bourgeois?
98 years (1911–2010)Louise Bourgeois / Age at death
What is the meaning of the mother in the book Bourgeois?
It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother, with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection. Her mother, Josephine, was a woman who repaired tapestries in her father's textile restoration workshop in Paris. When Bourgeois was twenty-one, she lost her mother to an unknown illness.
Where was the Maman sculpture in 2012?
Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 23 January 2012 – 17 June 2012. Qatar National Convention Center, Qatar – The Maman sculpture; exhibited from 20 January – 1 June 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Centre as the centerpiece of the Conscious and Unconscious exhibition; the first solo exhibit of Bourgeois' work to be displayed in the Middle East.
Why did Bourgeois choose the Modern Art Foundry to cast the sculpture?
Bourgeois chose the Modern Art Foundry to cast the sculpture because of its reputation and work.
When was Maman first exhibited?
Tate Modern, UK – The permanent acquisition of this sculpture in 2008 is considered one of the Tate Modern's historical moments. Maman was first exhibited in the turbine hall and later displayed outside the gallery in 2000. It was received with mixed reactions of amazement and amusement.
What is a maman?
Maman is a monumental steel spider, so large that it can only be installed out of doors, or inside a building of industrial scale. Supported on eight slender, knobbly legs, its body is suspended high above the ground, allowing the viewer to walk around and underneath it. Each ribbed leg ending in a sharp-tipped point is made of two pieces of steel, and attached to a collar above which an irregularly ribbed spiralling body rises, balanced by a similar sized egg sac below. The meshed sac contains seventeen white and grey marble eggs that hang above the viewer’s head, gleaming in the darkness of their under-body cavity. Maman was made for the opening of Tate Modern in May 2000 as part of Bourgeois’s commission for the Turbine Hall, the grand central space of the museum. The sculpture was installed on the bridge, overlooking three tall steel towers entitled I Do, I Undo and I Redo, referring to processes of emotional development in relation to motherhood, a central theme in the artist’s oeuvre. An edition of six bronze casts was created subsequent to Tate’s original steel version; their marble eggs have pinker tones than those of T12625.
What does Maman's curving legs mean?
Maman ’s curving ribbed legs evoke gothic columns that rise to lofty heights above the congregation of an open cathedral, while its marble eggs recall the contents of Cell (Three White Marble Spheres) 1993 (reproduced in Louise Bourgeois: Maman, p.51), in which a small white marble sphere nestles between two much larger ones.
What is the meaning of encountering Maman?
Encountering Maman always from the perspective of the child looking up from below, the viewer may experience the sculpture as an expression of anxiety about a mother who is universal – powerful and terrifying, beautiful and, without eyes to look or a head to think, curiously indifferent. Further reading.
What does the name Maman mean?
The title Maman translates as ‘Mummy ’, the appellation a child uses for its mother. Like the title Fillette (meaning ‘little girl’) that Bourgeois gave to a large plaster and latex penis that hangs from a wire (1968, reproduced in Morris p.147), the title Maman enhances dynamic contradictions at the heart of the sculpture.
What movement did Louise Bourgeois work in?
Exterior next to the footbridge. Over a career that spanned some seven decades, Louise Bourgeois created a rich and ever-changing body of work that intersected with some of the leading avant-garde movements of the 20th century, including Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Post-Minimalism, ...
How tall is Maman?
Almost 9 meters tall, Maman is one of the most ambitious of a series of sculptures by Bourgeois that take as their subject the spider, a motif that first appeared in several of the artist's drawings in the 1940s and came to assume a central place in her work during the 1990s.
What is Louise Bourgeois known for?
Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist. Even though her work includes painting, performance, drawing and engraving she is best known for her sculpture and installation art. In her sculptures she used different materials as wood, bronze, latex or marble; they could be whether intimate or monumental. Her work is very personal and ...
What is the name of the sculpture that is the mother?
Maman is probably her best-known sculpture. The title is the French word for “mother”.
Overview
Philosophy and meaning
- It was not until her first retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1981 that Bourgeoise began talking openly about her traumatic childhood experiences, as well as her feelings of anger, self-doubt, and fear, all of which she struggled with and put into her artwork. Maman, her 30 feet high spider, was not exhibited until 20 years later at the T...
Permanent locations
Temporary locations
Maman (1999) is a bronze, stainless steel, and marble sculpture by the artist Louise Bourgeois. 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 32 marble eggs and its abdomen and thorax are made of ribbed bronze.
See also
The sculpture picks up the theme of the arachnid that Bourgeois had first contemplated in a small ink and charcoal drawing in 1947, continuing with her 1996 sculpture Spider. It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother, with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection. Her mother, Josephine, was a woman who repaired tapestries in her father's textile restoration worksh…
External links
Some of these editions in permanent collections often tour on exhibit:
• Tate Modern, UK – The permanent acquisition of this sculpture in 2008 is considered one of the Tate Modern's historical moments. Maman was first exhibited in the turbine hall and later displayed outside the gallery in 2000. It was received with mixed reactions of amazement and amusement. The sculpture owned by the Tate Modern is the only one made from stainless steel.