American sculptor, painter and printmaker, born in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois is an exceptional figure in the contemporary art world. Her career spans some seventy years and touches upon such key moments as Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and feminism. After a lifetime of little artistic recognition, Bourgeois now enjoys cult status.
An extraordinarily influential sculptor, she has worked, often experimentally, with a huge variety of materials. She is equally admired for her intimate drawings, often combining fragments of text, and her highly personal writings, which often address her long and complex life story. Themes such as the Other, the feminine and the masculine, and the body, as well as her own specific biography, spin a tangled and intense life-long body of work of unusual profundity.
Interview: Paulo Herkenhoff (with Thyrza Goodeve)
Focus: Allan Schwartzman
Artist`s choice: Francoise Sagan
Writings: Louise Bourgeois