Review: [untitled] Author(s): Julia Bryan-Wilson Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Dec., 2007), pp. 823-826 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067365 . Accessed: 23/03/2011 10:00

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http://www.jstor.org BOOK REVIEWS: BRYAN-WILSON ON NIXON ?23

The between their a munication. poet and painter belonged ularly the presumed intimacy mixed itwith spit, and molded figure of to two art was different politico-historical and cul practice and their fraught personal cir my father. When the figure done, I tural a moments?Renaissance and Baroque cumstances. started cutting off the limbs with knife. I in historical What to an artist like Lou see as shorthand?and their artistic do, then, with this my first sculptural solution" (p. ise her of sad projects, however linked, ultimately di Bourgeois, who, despite share 265). While Nixon lets this brief anecdote not own and is still sane and verged. Tasso did always play by his ness, suffering, struggle, hover in her text without further explica well into her nineties? Nix rules; Poussin made those rules the basis of thriving Mignon tion (these are the concluding sentences of his refined art. on's beautiful new mono and provocative her final chapter), it perfectly encapsulates Fantastic Louise and a graph Reality: Bourgeois her overarching premise about the central David is Modern Art the case nei quint Sterling Professor of Story of makes that ity of aggressive play within Bourgeois's art. Comparative Literature and English at Yale ther Surrealism-?which the artist herself This creation and dismemberment?indeed, Yale disavowed?nor are sufficient sin a University [Department ofEnglish, biography creating in order to dismember?of sub 63 Street, Room 109, P.O. Box on University, High gular lenses for understanding Bourgeois's stitute father keys into Klein's emphasis 208302, New Haven, Conn. 06520-8302]. art. Nixon think ei Neither, though, does the fundamental roles that incorporation, ther term be should completely discarded. oral sadism, and destruction play in psychic Billed as the "first full-scale critical of as children come to under Notes study" life, especially Fantastic an Bourgeois's work, Reality posits stand themselves relationally. Nixon hones 1. Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: A Humanis between art and in on interplay psychoanalysis Kleinian negativity; mourning, aggres ticTheory ofPainting (New York: W. W. Norton, without reductively psychoanalyzing the art sion, and death are vital to her accounts of 1967); Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Demp ist.When Nixon turns to the of the in distinction to Freud's stress sey,Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and theLove of question psyche, she does so not out of a morbid on the As Nixon Painting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, trauma, pleasure principle. states, "Poussin's Osserva fascination with an artist's demise that 1996); Anthony Colantuono, early Bourgeois's work "argues for the potential or zioni sopra la pittura: Notes Aphorisms?" Studi then focus to the short career gives sharp of sculpture to encompass the death drive: Secenteschi 41 285-309; Elizabeth (2000): Crop it is seen in much on as an preceding (as writing to enact destruction and persis per, The Ideal ofPainting: Pieiro Testa's D?sseldorf early Instead, she the tent but one linked to an Notebook (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Woodman). explores signif trend, indissolubly and The Domenichino icance of the death drive at the 1984); idem, Affair (New beginning equally primitive and tenacious tendency Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). rather than at the end of life: that within is, towards sublimation" (p. 268). Sculpture, 2. I out an error in translation as point Unglaub's infantile subject formation delineated by with its dimensionality in space, its surro on page 106, where it isMarino's Venus who the us pioneering object-relations psychoana gacy, its scale, and its bodily effects, tells takes Adonis on her lap and not the other way Melanie Klein. about the bread around: the mistake is not so trivial, since it lyst something intersubjectivity; While art has been to father makes that much clear. would suggest a departure from the passivity Bourgeois's subject and-spit that marks Adonis the feminist on as an throughout Adone. psychoanalytic readings, informed Rather than relying psychoanalysis and model for the book's most 3. Timothy Hampton, Writing fromHistory: The by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, explanatory art, Rhetoric in Renaissance Literature Luce as ofExemplarity Irigaray, Nixon's pioneering book potent contribution is that it presents art N.Y.: (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1990); serts her art is above all As as that Kleinian.1 and psychoanalysis equally illuminating, and Riccardo Bruscagli, Studi cavallereschi (Flor Nixon out, herself was interconnected discourses the ence: Societ? Editrice Fiorentina, 2003). The points Bourgeois regarding in the and theoretical ram of formation. classic critical description of Tasso's divided steeped practical process subject as a case imaginative sympathies is in Sergio Zatti, ifications of Klein's work. In fact, in the The book is organized series of L cristiano e il a studies that chrono 'uniforme multiformepagano: Saggio mid-1960s, she considered becoming child proceed only roughly sulla "GerusalemmeLiberata" Il (Milan: Saggia an arc analyst; Nixon makes the case logically, tracing through Bourgeois's tore, 1983). persuasively career from the 1940s to the 1990s as she that "Bourgeois's investigation of child anal 4. Matteo Residori, L 'idea del poema: Studio sulla with the intention of a thera both inhabits and subverts her role as a de Gerusalemme conquistata di Torquato Tasso (Pisa: ysis becoming informs the of fiant and an Scuola Normale Superiore, 2004). pist consistently development daughter (vis-?-vis Surrealism) a ambivalent mother femi her art" (p. 7). Nixon does not force (for contemporary onto nist In Defer Kleinian template Bourgeois's objects; art). chapter 1, "Discipleship: instead, she a lucid be ence and Difference," Nixon outlines Bour MIGNON NIXON presents dialogue tween the art and the geois's charged relationship with the "father Fantastic Louise and a theory, explicating Reality: Bourgeois resonances between Klein's influential theo figures" of Surrealism, including Marcel Modem Art and that the Story of ries about childhood aggression and the Duchamp Joan Mir?, arguing Mass.: MIT 2005. 352 artist's work a to Cambridge, Press, artworks, while also using the artist's prac constituted "rebuttal" 103 b/w ills. as a male-dominated Surrealism Nixon pp.; $40.00 tice springboard for her extended med (p. 23). in of archival itations on Klein's case studies. She suggests engages readings photo Suicide. Madness. Institutionalization. Acci that the art "extends, and at times contests" graphs, such as one from 1947 in which dent. Illness. The of of a seated biographies many the vast but neglected theoretical terrain of Bourgeois kneels alongside Mir?, the women artists associated with and influ to demonstrate how child psychoanalysis (p. 6). In Nixon's deft Bourgeois burlesques enced Surrealism contain a of the idea of at the feet of her by litany trag text, Bourgeois's work talks back to the the "discipleship" edies?think of Leonora Car a Surrealist masters in order to transform it Kay Sage, ory and furnishes powerful discursive tool Frida Kahlo, Francesca within the terms of rington, Woodman, for understanding Klein. feminism. Eva and Kusama. Art Hesse, Yayoi historians The conversation between Klein and Nixon maintains that Bourgeois is both recite these bleak details over and over like in an astute reader and a reviser of Surrealism. Bourgeois clarifies, particular, the sculp them to us make tural of Yet transference as incantations, willing help element Bourgeois's work (though Bourgeois's negative is, sense of the of art to Nixon unsettling power these Nixon does not limit herself Bourgeois's admits, "transference nevertheless" ists' works. We their lives un at plunder (or sculptural practice, looking also drawings, (p. 28), and her close ties to the Surrealist to to their art. timely deaths) give shape performance documentation, personal pho milieu?and to Freud?continue to inform for Perhaps women, Surrealism's emphasis tographs, photo-and-text magazine projects, her practice. For instance, Nixon believes on and a re and that repetition fantasy provided engravings, installations). Bourgeois Bourgeois's photo-essay Child Abuse, source for trauma. Yet re has on working through herself remarked the familial origins published inArtforum in 1982, inwhich the course to the is we were biographical disproportion of her sculpture: "Once sitting to artist confesses that her father's affair with on these female at the I took white was a ately pressed artists, partie gether table, bread, her childhood governess defining be ART BULLETIN DECEMBER VOLUME LXXXIX NUMBER 4 824 2007

as an to trayal in her life, closely echoes Freud's cel sculpture "object be mothered" (p. homesickness. Nixon relates the act of case to ebrated study of the hysteric Dora; both 73). From hyperbolic female fetishism mourning?the hard work of detaching a maternal Nixon makes the case from a lost the portray daughter's psychosexual drama aggression: object?to sculptural pro a are sexu construc involving philandering father. These that Bourgeois's complex rendering of cess, describing how Bourgeois's not to simplistic equivalences, however. Nixon ality and parodie motherhood reveals criti tion is akin the laborious severing and an on not refuses to say that Dora had impact cal failures only in Freudian accounts of reinventing of psychic bonds. Somewhat ob Bourgeois in any straightforward way. In subjectivity but also in much mainstream scured in this chapter is the wider political stead, Nixon's methodology, itself seemingly feminism. context of the era; Nixon asserts: "Bour more asso is the focus of as use inspired by Freud, is lateral and Printmaking chapter 3, geois's of reclaimed materials and brico case Nixon examines He a ciative than directional. The study of Bourgeois's Disappeared lage techniques invokes wartime domestic into a series of of and as Dora is juxtaposed to the narrative offered Complete Silence, engravings economy sorting saving, against a brief texts in based and in Child Abuse, that is, it asserts logic of accompanied by published industrially production postwar 1947. These works are transi ideals" But did these adjacency rather than influence. What is significantly progressive (p. 149). as tional as the of the "invoke" this more, Bourgeois, she reflects on, theo "cutting" engravings sculptures merely economy? made a out of the artist's transi The reuse of as well as these rizes, and narrates these experiences, be metaphor thrifty scraps, to as a comes "as much like Freud as she was like tion from painting sculpture. This chap haunting forms, could be understood ter use more to war Dora" (p. 50). also investigates Bourgeois's of rather forceful response the At the same Nixon outlines how than the one Nixon discerns. time, words, observing how her "flat, affectless as the Nixon Klein moved away from Freud's patriarchal tone" in this series is akin to the withdrawn Here, throughout book, of and This treads when it comes to delineat understanding pleasure fantasy. world of the autistic child (p. 88). If free delicately thus a double were cause and effect. She is careful to avoid chapter presents complex association and dreams pivotal for Sur ing conscious influence between narrative, twinning Bourgeois's resistance to realist artists such as Andr? Breton, generat "proving" Surrealism with Klein's of the em text and instead inter rejection ing works differently for Bourgeois. Bourgeois Klein, evoking on discourses. "Once Klein's the phasis Eros (as articulated by Freud and "What is 'surreal' for Breton is not 'fantastic locking again his These renunci ories of are useful" reads a daughter Anna). parallel reality' for Bourgeois" (p. 94). Instead, anxiety (p. 150) are feminist in their restrained comment. Nixon relies ations moves; work, Bourgeois's "fantastic reality" is closely typically and both central to on elusive or as Klein's Bourgeois Klein, mothers, aligned Kleinian phantasy?the imagina slippery verbiage, the art of ize questions of gendered subjectivity and tive field of instincts and drives based in the metaphors constantly "suggest" to the are works the maternal, refusing simply play body. Phantasies unconscious drives Bourgeois. Conversely, Bourgeois's who enacts the awareness "seem to have a hysteric symptomatically stimulated by physical (of hunger, "imply," "invoke," particular the resonance "touch and "are family's larger dysfunction. By outlining of pain, of pleasure) ; ruled by sadistic drives with," on," appo of feminist trans are site of Klein. As this associative convergence Bourgeois's and oral aggression, they distinct from mentioned, formation of Surrealism with Klein's new seems to have been drawn from Freudian fantasies. Merging Klein's phan logic Freud, that accounts for with a chain of related psychoanalytic framework tasy and Bourgeois's fantastic reality, Nixon thoughts triggering a feminine this a The and reimagined subject, chapter coins the term "phantasic reality," "bodily unexpected insights. strengths the for the that follow. value of this method of lays ground chapters unconscious" that for artist and analyst alike argumentation by "Femme Maison are Chapter 2, (Woman finds itsmost visible manifestation in the parallelism that it avoids overly simpli What's So about Fetishism?" fied models of influence or House): Funny infantile, autistic, schizoid, and psychotic. pat base-super extends this at structure even as it reading by looking closely Elaborating her definition of phantastic explanations. However, the of female in aims to what be limited em question fetishism, particu reality, Nixon shifts back and forth from displace might how vision of the it is lar, examining Bourgeois's Bourgeois's engravings, Duchamp's The pirical models, occasionally frustratingly feminine was elaborated her mai What kinds of lie be by femme Bride Stripped Bare byHer Bachelors, Even (The elliptical. assumptions son of the hind this refusal to assert (woman house) drawings 1940s Large Glass (1915-23), and Klein's account causality? onto a Bataille over that graft architectural forms female of her treatment of Dick, schizophrenic Georges reigns chapter 5, was as not "Double The Death Drive Turned anatomy. The femme maison invented, child. Here, elsewhere, Nixon does Negative: to Death." Nixon tracks according Nixon, to "portray the predica presume the reader's intimate familiarity against Bourgeois's a woman summa shift in the 1960s from vertical to horizontal ment of artist and mother, home with Klein, and she provides helpful on as as some on Bataille's of sick in exile?carrying her house her ries well critical rereadings of of sculpture, drawing concepts a case head?trying to make it as surrealist in her most famous studies. Bourgeois's the low and the base. Further, she explores a series of traumas how in New York" (p. 56). In these drawings, Bour engravings detail abrupt Bourgeois's art, increasing pliability an account was tied to her documented interest in geois exaggerates Surrealism's fetishizing of and loss, giving of psychic con is in Klein's child Her obsession with incon female sexuality to implode it. Nixon (dis)integration that paralleled analysis. manne sus in art is related to the of trasts them with Andr? Masson's writing. Nixon further posits that the stancy malleability to of the manic the infant mind. If the of art quins and their evident misogyny demon pended animation personality emergence on and the of are strate how the artist used barbed humor, bears the halted mechanics in The Large emergence subjectivity to interests is then of can be mimicry, and sly jokes undermine the Glass:. "What Bourgeois, however, linked, questions process not this rerouted children and Freudian and Surrealist drive to fragment, the sexual functioning of apparatus, productively through of In their of life as contain, and objectify the female body. The but its processing aggression. effect, stirrings psychic analyzed by she that latent in the autoeroticism Klein. Nixon a model for how to do chapter then jumps ahead several decades suggests gives of the bachelor machine is for at how the infan to investigate how Bourgeois further mined auto-aggression, this, looking, instance, a death drive" tile fixation on the the these issues in her 1968 sculpture Fillette. (p. 102). excremental, toxic, a Nixon returns to in and the edible form the theoretical basis for Nixon undertakes close reading of the sculpture chapter 4, a The Work of "soft of 1967. Other piece, defiantly fleshy, oversize cock and "Personages: Mourning," argu Bourgeois's landscapes" that the such as the 1960s balls, delineating how it productively slides ing Personages series, Bourgeois's sculptural series, early earliest first shown in re evoke the between penis, phallus, and baby. She also sculptures, 1949, Lairs, beginnings, materiality, a flect her status in New York. and fusions of Klein's pursues how the sculpture became prop ?migr? postwar losses, unexpected The "functioned as Nixon also ex in Bourgeois's photo shoot with Robert sculptures figures" (p. subject-in-formation. closely over contact for made amines how in the work of Mapplethorpe, poring the 124) Bourgeois?vibrant beings instability figures to and the exile's Eva Hesse. This is the sheets that depict the artist cradling the encapsulate, discharge, perhaps strongest BOOK REVIEWS: BRYAN-WILSON ON NIXON ?25

account concentrates on chapter, utterly convincing in its of and in the epilogue, which overwhelming impulse to psychoanalyze the as art as were a how Bourgeois's fascination with child anal recent sculpture such She-Fox (1985) and if it person, the absolutely piv a ysis informed these works at the moment of Spider (1997), Nixon insists that the artist's otal fact that Bourgeois wanted to be child new their inception, and it opens up ways of return to maternal aggression contributes to psychologist and thought seriously about an area school to it is at thinking about process and indeterminacy that Klein herself overlooked. Her entering graduate study more art times treated almost like a casual aside. in 1960s art generally. thus "counters Klein, inventing maternal As in Nixon writes on as a Nixon does not throw out the chapter 1, again ambivalence psychic position of poten completely the be with the bathwater. She parallel tracks, asserting that split tial imaginative power" (p. 270). For, while biographical baby tween Breton and Bataille over the allows that intellectual impor Bourgeois is at the heart of this art histori Bourgeois's history, tance of the death drive was echoed in the her Surrealist her interest in child cal book, it also significantly contributes to milieu, rift between Anna Freud and Klein over the on as us and her motherhood all inform the literature Klein, Nixon pushes analysis, role of the Nixon see on her In so she self-preserving ego. gener to how Bourgeois's art elaborates making. doing, acknowledges ates her lists: on one side Breton that need not be binary go several of Klein's blind spots. This is one of biography strictly opposed and with self to or historical Freud, aligned Surrealism, Nixon's most consistently impressive feats: social, political, analysis. the on the other side of course, is what us a preservation, libido; convincing the reader that the art has some Feminism, gives way infantile to to as out of that false of that the go Klein, Bourgeois, Thanatos, thing say the analyst beyond serving binary thinking But in "Femme a can is to the Such a anxiety, negativity. chapter 6, diagnostic tool, that it expose contra personal opposed political. Couteau :Art as Part or feminist framework be fur (Knife Woman) Objects dictions extend theoretical readings? might pushed these columns to ther. Nixon mentions that both Klein and Objects," prove tricky sep that art, in effect, discursively contributes to as combined and their arate, the argument returns to Duchamp psychoanalytic debates. Bourgeois parenting is famous for her endeavors but not elabo and investigates the legacy of the "part-ob Bourgeois aphorisms. professional does as as the collection of her rate on ject" in Bourgeois well other twentieth They punctuate writ the tensions and difficulties of such a century artists. For Klein the infant's world ings, Destruction of theFather/Reconstruction of situation. How might this have worked is as ruled by "part-objects," such the breast, theFather, and constitute special appendices economically, given the gendered division infant de in numerous recent through which the experiences books about Bour of labor? What particular class and social and loss. These statements often reiter circumstances have these pendency, pleasure, panic, need, geois.2 pithy might enabled dual roles? Such are "First phantasies, Melanie Klein contended, ate the psychic suffering of her childhood questions only glanced a at. Others have that arise from the body in the grip of anxiety and how art has played therapeutic, repar speculated there might use have been a more and aggression. In rage, the mouth canni ative role for her. Nixon makes strategic much profound conflict so an sec between and art balizes the breast, and incorporates of the artist's statements, which mark Bourgeois's motherhood at once menac Nixon Robert object that is sustaining and tion breaks throughout the text. Yet they than allows. Storr claims that an are one source have been times when ing, object of love and of hate" (p. 213). only among manyj including there Bourgeois "has a art at full Nixon intelligently produces major rewrit Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Jacqueline stopped making throttle. Specifi this in the ing of the practices of Hesse, Jasper Johns, Rose, Joan Copjec, Leo Bersarii, Daniel cally, happened early 1940s, to a and Kusama in the 1950s and 1960s, tracing Lagache, Jane Gallop, and Jessica Benjamin. when she attempted be conventional a Duchampian legacy through the part-ob Obviously, given the book's psychoanalytic wife and mother; and in the mid-1950s, courses on ject that culminates in Bourgeois's Femme bent, passages from Freud and Klein crowd when she briefly took psychology once Couteau (1969). If part-objects at sym the pages. While in general Nixon does not and French literature with the intention of on The art bolize and obviate the porous boundary be spend her time assessing the literature changing careers."4 tension between tween one and in era self and other, when wielded in art Bourgeois, figure to whom Nixon fre motherhood the postwar raises room a not practice, they might also make for quently refers is Rosalind Krauss, former larger questions, addressed by Nixon, mas now alternative gender politics beyond the teacher of Nixon's and her colleague about the historically specific rhetoric of of the heroic Bour at October. The fact that Krauss's culinity avant-garde. interpreta maternity.5 woman terror are as The subtitle of Nixon's book a geois's knife brings back the tions often presumed given rather promises as a ex of modern but one finds of female sex, it "suggests what the logic than argued for (along with, to lesser "story art," actually a those of Annette to little on modernism here. of female fetish might be, but also points tent, Michelson) alludes very specifically another kind of here. Nixon insists that art to other aporias, other blind spots, in the family story Instead, Bourgeois's For at least the readers of the The phallocentric theories of psychoanalysis" past decade, "anticipate [s] postmodern" (p. 3). work such as Krauss and Mieke blurred line between modern and (p. 234). For Nixon, this erosion of phallo Bourgeois's postmod Bal have themselves ern comes several the centrism indicates the "fledgling gender positioned against using up times; part-object the artist's words or to "cuts across the of the modern politics" of Neo-Dada (p. 248). The part background produce history reductive of her work.3 and the for and object's logic structure of substitution and psychobiographies postmodern," instance, a new Nixon herself believes that has a equivalence gives Nixon way of look biography Duchamp and Bourgeois share "both mod at too on of the art: ing Johns's Rag (1954-55), for instance, weighed heavily readings ernist and postmodernist history" (p. 10). "In much of the ex as she proposes that its thick, fecal surfaces critical literature devoted Perhaps these statements admit the very ask to it is as in haustion of these More questions about the rooting of symbols Bourgeois's art, if, compensa categories. important, tion for an at the level of the terrain of canonical modernism is in bodily drives. unbinding sculp very a tural a feminism. Nixon likewise hews to dynamic of form, there is countervailing appeal currently being rewritten by Lucy to at the of asserted in equivalence and leveling. For her, Bour unity level biographical inter Lippard forcefully 1980 that To contradict this im "feminism's contribution to the fu geois's work accomplishes in sculptural pretation" (p. 2). greatest Nixon doles out anecdotes ture of art has been its lack of con form what Klein's does in psychoanalysis. pulse, personal probably Often she from art to tribution to goes psychoanalysis in sparingly?one could almost say timidly? modernism."6 This has been if not alternating paragraphs, toggling back and offering biographical information tucked challenged, contradicted outright, by forth case or recent art between description and Kleinian away within parentheses bracketed by scholarship and exhibitions, in and reader asso study letting the make the dashes, weaving relevant details into the tex cluding Helen Molesworth's Part Object/Part ciations. There are fewer moments ture of the Some when analysis. biography is Sculpture at the Wexner Center for the Arts art is seen as to Bourgeois's exceeding those shunted the notes, including potent (2005-6), whose title refers to Klein, and or on readings, pushing against them. And yet quotes from Bourgeois motherhood. Connie Butler's WACK! Art and theFeminist those are the most crucial moments of While this is a to the at all, necessary corrective Revolution the Los Angeles Museum of ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2007 VOLUME LXXXIX NUMBER 4 826

current and Contemporary Art (2007), both of which The major retrospective of Bour Press, 2005), 360-71; Hillary Robinson, art "Louise Bourgeois's 'Cells': Looking at Bour featured by Bourgeois. Such curatorial geois's art in Europe and the United States geois through Irigaray's Gesturing towards the and art historical work, including Nixon's, will only increase the artist's strato already Mother," inMuseum ofModern Art Papers, vol. 1, a full-scale revision?one increas stature Frances Mor signals spheric (organized by Louise Bourgeois, ed. Ian Cole (Oxford: Museum of Modern I am ingly coming into view?of the modern/ ris and Marie-Laure Bernadac, it will travel Art, Oxford, 1996), 21-30. indebted to Carrie for postmodern divide, in which that divide is from the T?te Modern, London, to the Cen Lambert-Beatty helping me think these issues. tre through interrogated by the imperatives of feminism. Pompidou, Paris, the Guggenheim Mu an on 2. Louise Bourgeois, Destruction theFather/Recon Moving beyond exclusive focus seum, New York, the Museum of Contempo of struction of theFather: Writings and Interviews women artists, this shift allows ques rary Art, Los and the Hirshhorn larger Angeles, 1923-1997, ed. Marie-Laure Bernadac and tions of to drive theoretical and Museum and parenting Sculpture Garden, Washing Hans-Ulrich Obrist (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT art historical inquiry beyond the Oedipal, ton, D.C., from 2007 to 2009). Fantastic Real Press, 1998). See also Bernadac, Louise Bour on trans. Deke Dusinberre (Paris: Flam making the whole history of twentieth-cen ity importantly takes Klein's emphasis geois, and Christiane art marion, 2006); Meyer-Thoss, tury look different. We thus might need child analysis, especially the death drive, Louise Bourgeois: Designing for Free Fall (Zurich: relation to modernism, even as and the and makes it Bourgeois's mourning, part-object, Ammann Verlag, 1992). as a to that relation is framed rejection of Sur central the story of Bourgeois's art. It 3. See Rosalind Krauss, "Louise Bourgeois: Por as we need of her also makes central to of realism, just aspects biog Bourgeois readings trait of the Artist as Fillette," in Bachelors (Cam to suc raphy fully appreciate her work. Klein; indeed, the book is at itsmost bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 51-74; and one Mieke Bal, Louise The Architec Juliet Mitchell posits that of Klein's cessful and exciting when it demonstrates Bourgeois' Spider: ture of Chi was ofArt-Writing (Chicago: University most significant contributions the power how Bourgeois exceeds Klein. Nixon's ele cago Press, 2001). case a of description she demonstrated in her gant book provides fresh way of thinking 4. Robert Storr, "A Sketch for a Portrait: Louise studies.7 One could say the same of Nixon; about the richness and strangeness of Bour Bourgeois," in Storr, Paolo Herkenhoff, and a writer, she artworks with and about the broader gifted conjures geois's practice psy Allan Schwartzman, Louise Bourgeois (London: economy and evocative phrasing. For in chic dimensions of creating and looking at Phaidon Press, 2003), 40. stance, Amoeba is "a art. Bourgeois's sculpture 5. These issues are explored in a different con disk of and puckered plaster, swelling text by Anne Wagner's recent book Mother bryan-wilson or Julia is assistant professor Stone: The Modern British drooping like clay dough, kneaded thin" Vitality of Sculpture art and visual studies at the of history University (New Haven: Yale University Press for the Paul (p. 180). This language helps animate the Irvine [85 Humanities Instructional Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2005). works that are otherwise dulled of California, slightly by has also for Irvine, 92697-2785]. Wagner argued rethinking biogra the lack of color Clinical ob Building Calif. reproductions. phy beyond the "merely personal" in Bour servation is, of course, not the same as geois's art, in her "Bourgeois Prehistory, or to a The Ransom of Fantasies," Art ekphrasis, but it is tempting draw par Notes Oxford Journal 22, no. 2 (1999): 3-23. allel. Mitchell's about the role of point 1. For example, see Griselda Pollock, "Old Bones 6. Lucy The Con description in Klein's therapeutic analysis and Cocktail Dresses: Louise and the Lippard, "Sweeping Exchanges: Bourgeois tribution of Feminism to the Art of the art as as of Art no. 2 1970s," is applicable to historians well, Question Age," Oxford Journal %%, Art Journal 40, nos. 1-2 (1980): 362. (1999): 71-100; Julie Nicoletta, "Louise Bour both clarify relationships, analyze small Femmes-Maisons: Lacan," in 7. Mitchell, "Introduction toMelanie structure geois's Confronting Juliet but significant details, provide Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History af Klein," in Reading Melanie Klein, ed. John Phil for and mean interpretation, generate terPostmodernism, ed. Norma Broude and Mary lips and Lyndsey Stonebridge (London: Rout ings. D. Garrard (Berkeley: University of California ledge, 1998), 11-31.