Why is Louise Bourgeois a contemporary symbol?
First of all Bourgeois has had a life to envy. She emigrated from Paris to New York in 1938 after she married the American art historian Robert Goldwater and still, as a woman, artist and immigrant, managed to find her way in the art scene of New York. Second, her success (contrary to the current norm that tells you that if you haven’t found success in your thirties you’ll probably never will) came to the advanced age of 70, when New York’s Museum of Modern Art presented a solo show of her career in 1982. Third, she has had an intense art trajectory, moving from surrealism to abstract expressionism and minimalism and from painting to sculpture and installations, showing an extraordinary ability of transformation and adaptation. But most important, her art has managed to speak to a great audience, reflecting all the love/hate dynamics of family relationships, the Oedipus problematic and the child’s endless search for love and confirmation. In many interviews, Bourgeois cited a childhood
