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C:\Documents and Settings\lproctor.ULL\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK36\Copyright - thesis.doc Disagreeable Objects: The Sculptural Strategies of Louise Bourgeois by Catherine Margaret Burge Thesis submitted for the examination of Doctor of Philosophy University College London September 2004 UMI Number: U592654 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U592654 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis explores Louise Bourgeois’ practice as a matrix of strategies, and is positioned in opposition to the psycho-biographical approach that has dominated writing about Bourgeois’ art. I take Giacometti’s title at its most literal: that the object may disagree with the discourse around it. Chapter one places Bourgeois in her moment of the 1940s to historicize an artist who is seen as out-of-time and to explore her early strategies. Chapter two considers Bourgeois’ studio as an alternative site for meaning in her work. Her studio strategies can be seen to be at once invisible, dominated by her personality and biography and yet simultaneously central to the curatorial and commercial activities. Bourgeois’ narratives, that dominate our understanding of her work, are discovered to operate mythically (Midgley). I interrogate the status of Bourgeois’ words and her self-images in relation to her objects. I suggest that they exist in a complex relationship to the sculptures, slipping between context and sculptural intervention. Consequently, there are moments when it can be argued that even Bourgeois’ body is a part of her work. Hence, I undermine the art-life trajectory, not by separating the artist from the work, through the expressive fallacy and the critique of authorship, but by paying close attention to the blurring between life and art. The inevitable conclusion is that, in a very real sense, the art may be producing the life. My final chapter investigates how Bourgeois’ objects co-opt the audience as one’s peripatesis becomes a walk into her environments and in some cases one substitutes for the sculptural symbolic object. Concluding with Bourgeois’ most recent work I ask if her most well known art of recent years is best understood in terms of her aging and examine how understanding an aging subjectivity may alter our perception of Bourgeois’ work. 1 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Table of Contents 2 List of Plates 3-7 Introduction 8-43 1 Complete Shutdown: Strategies of Engagement 44-81 2 Shop talk: Developing Strategies of Practice and Mythmaking 82-113 3 Bourgeois Truth: Strategies in Interviews and Images 114-150 4 Vanishing Memory: Reflecting upon the Present and the Past 151-176 Concluding Remarks 177-179 Plates 180-266 Bibliography 267-281 Acknowledgements 282 2 List of Plates 1. Alberto Giacometti, Disagreeable Object (1931) plaster (10.4 x 49.3 x 15 cm) Musee d’art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Photo: Renst Scheidegger, Neue Zurcher Zeitung 2. Fallen Woman (1981) marble (8.3 x 10.2 x 34.3 cm) collection of the artist Photo: courtesy of Louise Bourgeois Studio 3. Max Ernst, Lunar Asparagus (1935) plaster (165.5 cm) The Museum of Modern Art New York 4. Morning (1944) drypoint, third state of six states (8.8 x 6.3 cm) Photo: Kate Keller, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 5. Easton (1940/1) drypoint, third state of three states (19.1 x 12.6 cm) Photo: David Allison 6. Natural History (1944) oil on canvas (30.5 x 45.7 cm) private collection, New York Photo: Max Rayner, New York 7. Connecticutiana (1944-5) oil on wood (28.0 x 106.7 cm) private collection, New York Photo: Donald Greenhaus, courtesy of Max Hutchinson Gallery 8. Adolph Gottlieb, Pictograph 4 (1943) oil on canvas (89.5 x 58.1 cm) Adolph and Ester Gottlieb Foundation, Inc., New York Photo: Geoffrey Clements 9. Untitled (1946-7) oil on linen (68.6 x 114.3 cm) private collection, New York Photo: Donald Greenhaus, courtesy of Max Hutchinson Gallery 10. Roof Song (1947) oil on linen (53.3 x 78.7 cm) The Grenoble collection of Mr. And Mrs. Eugene P. Gorman, New York Photo: Allan Finkelman, courtesy Robert Miller Gallery, New York 11 .H e Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 1 , alternative titles, La Maison Solitaire and One Figure (1946-7) a suite of nine engravings with text (25.3 x 35.5 cm) Courtesy Cheim and Read, New York Photo: Eeva Inkeri 12. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 2, alternative titles, Abandoned Skyscrapers, Les Maisons Solitaires and Two Figures 13. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 3, alternative titles, Three Figures and New York (USA) 14. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 4, alternative titles, Steel Structure and The Solitary Death of the Woolworth Building 15. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 5 ’ alternative title, Porte Tableau 16. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 6, alternative title, Leprosarium, Louisiana 17. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 7, alternative title, Two Personages 18. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 8, alternative titles, The Prisoner, Ghost Ladders and Ghosts 19. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, plate 9, alternative titles, The Hudson River, The Gentle Revenge of the Hudson River and Flood: le Gratte d e l 20. He Disappeared into Complete Silence, alternative plate, alternative title, Ceiling Floating’ 21. Louise Bourgeois Recent Work 1947-49: Seventeen Standing Figures in Wood, installation view, Peridot Gallery, New York (1949) Photo: Jeremiah Russell 3 22. Louise Bourgeois, Sculptures, installation view Peridot Gallery, New York (1950) Photo: H. Messer, courtesy of Robert Miller Gallery New York 23. Femme Maison (Woman House) (1946-47) oil and ink on linen (91.4 x 35.6 cm) the Grenoble collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene P. Gorman, New York Photo: Donald Greenhaus, courtesy of Max Hutchinson Gallery 24. A visitor greeting Mason’s Mannequin at the opening of the 1938 Surrealist Exhibition News photo from Paris Soir reprinted in Martica Sawin Surrealism In Exile p. 5 25. Janus Fleurie (1968) bronze (25.7 x 31.8 x 21.2 cm) Robert Miller Gallery, New York Photo: Peter Bellamy 26. Double Negative (1963) latex over plaster (49.1 x 94.9 x 79.6 cm) Galerie Lelong, Zurich Photo: Zindman/Fremont 27. Installation view of Eccentric Abstraction, 1966 Fischbach Gallery papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution 28. Fold detail (1964), plaster and latex. Photo: courtesy of Louise Bourgeois Studio 29. Lair (1962-3) plaster (46 x 74.9 x 59.6 cm) Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt 30. Fee Couturiere (1963) gypsum cement (100.3 x 57.2 cm) Rober Miller Gallery, New York Photo: Steve Sloman, New York 31. Fee Couturiere (1963) detail Photo: Steve Sloman, New York 32. Portrait (1963) latex (39 x 31.5 x 10.5 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Arthur Drexler Photo: Peter Bellamy 33. Le Regard (1967) latex and fabric (12.7 x 39.3 x 36.8 cm) Robert Miller Gallery, New York Photo: Peter Bellamy 34. Solo Exhibition Stable Gallery (1964) Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt 35. Spiral Summer ( 1960) plaster (approx. 25.5 x 53.3 cm) Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt 36. Life Flower 1 (1960) plaster (57.1 X 86.3 X 58.4 cm) Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt 37. Untitled (1954) painted wood (162.5 cm) Robert Miller Gallery, New York Photo: Peter Moore 38. 20th Street studio (late 1960s) Photo: Peter Moore 39.