Friday 14 December 2012

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.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Interesting to see your influences Jennifer