The Foundation of Bourgeois's Art: Love and Hate Toward Her Parents
Ambivalence Toward the Mother: Care and Violence...Fear of Abandonment
The solo exhibition "Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal" by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), a master of 20th-century contemporary art, has opened at Hoam Art Museum in Yongin. This is the largest retrospective of her work ever held in Korea, showcasing a total of 106 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, and installations.
Hoam Art Museum 'Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal' Exhibition Artwork. A broken string connecting a mother's breast and a young child, symbolizing separation and abandonment from the mother. Photo by Seo Mideum
The exhibition title, "Fleeting and Eternal," is borrowed from Bourgeois's own writings. It reflects the inner psychology related to memory and trauma, the body, and time-subjects she explored throughout her life. The exhibition captures identities and emotions that constantly waver at the boundaries between men and women, past and present, unconscious and reality, through the dual concepts of what disappears and what remains eternal.
Bourgeois, born in France and active in the United States, was a pioneering artist who made a significant mark on 20th-century avant-garde art with her sculptural language exploring autobiographical narratives and the structure of emotion. Her art spanned a wide range of categories, including installation, performance, drawing, painting, and printmaking.
The Foundation of Bourgeois's Art: Love and Hate Toward Her Parents
At the core of her artistic world lies a complex mix of love and hate toward her mother, Josephine, and her father, Louis. According to various writings she left behind, Bourgeois made constant efforts to gain her father's attention, but he, who wanted a son, did not show affection to his daughter who resembled him. The exhibition features a video of the elderly Bourgeois shedding tears as she recalls the sorrow of her father once saying she was uglier than a figure he made from an orange peel. For her, the mother was both an object of rivalry and jealousy, as well as someone who abandoned her. Suffering from anxiety and a lifelong fear of abandonment, Bourgeois considered the very act of childbirth to be a form of "abandonment" by the mother.
Greeting visitors at the entrance is the twisted sculptural piece "Couple" (2003), shaped like wrung towels. Curator Lee Jina, who organized the exhibition, explained, "This work expresses the conflicting and ambivalent feelings toward both father and mother through a spiral form."
Artwork from Hoam Museum of Art's exhibition "Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal." The black dress and the sphere below symbolize the phallus, and the sphere alone represents the breast. Photo by Seo Mideum
The piece "Cell (Black Days)" (2006) is a room-shaped installation that Bourgeois began presenting in 1991. Because her mother ran a tapestry restoration workshop when she was a child, the artist dressed mannequins in familiar garments for the installation. Two marble spheres are placed at the base of a black dress-these can be seen as breasts, but when visually aligned with the dress, they also resemble a phallus. This reflects Bourgeois's interest in the psychological effects of jealousy that distort relationships with others.
Hoam Art Museum 'Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal' exhibition artwork. It feels like a scene secretly peeking into the parents' bedroom. Through this, artist Bourgeois expressed the coexistence of desire and trauma, love and creation, and anxiety. Photo by Seo Mideum
"Red Room (Parents)" (1994) is another room-shaped installation. At the center of a room surrounded by doors is a bed covered in red rubber, with a xylophone and toys scattered around. Above, a glass shaped like a teardrop hangs precariously. Visitors cannot enter, creating the sensation of peeking into the parents' bedroom through a crack in the door. This scene depicts a family environment where desire and trauma, love and creation, and anxiety coexist.
Ambivalence Toward the Mother: Care and Violence...Fear of Abandonment
Hoam Art Museum 'Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal' Exhibition Work. The spider symbolizes the mother. It represents the duality of a caregiver and sometimes a violent presence. Photo by Seo Mideum
The highlight of the exhibition is the large "Maman" sculpture, shaped like a crouching spider. For Bourgeois, the spider symbolizes the mother. She expressed her childhood memories of her mother, who was always sewing, through the image of a spider weaving its web. Curator Lee explained, "This work reveals the artist's ambivalent feelings toward motherhood. The frightening form represents both a nurturing presence for children and the potential for violence. It is a piece about the fear of abandonment."
The work "Destruction of the Father" condenses anger and anxiety toward patriarchal authority. Bourgeois confessed, "As a child, I imagined my family, exhausted by my father's self-aggrandizement, dragging him down, tearing him apart, and devouring him," revealing her hatred toward her father. Curator Lee stated, "Bourgeois's father had an affair with the housekeeper, and her mother, though aware, tolerated it. Bourgeois was deeply wounded by what she saw as her parents' betrayal and underwent psychoanalysis for many years." Paradoxically, after her father's death, she suffered from severe depression, and Curator Lee analyzed, "The sense of emptiness when the object of one's hatred suddenly disappears likely had a significant impact."
Hoam Art Museum 'Louise Bourgeois: Fleeting and Eternal' Exhibition Work. An expression of hatred toward a father who craved attention but did not give it. For Bourgeois, the father was someone who had an affair with the housekeeper, leaving the mother. Photo by Seo Mideum
The artist experienced severe depression and underwent psychoanalysis for 33 years. She left behind extensive records, including dream journals, work notes, and memos from 1952 to 1967, which are also on display in this exhibition. Her confession, "During the Oedipal phase, I never got a chance," serves as a key to understanding Bourgeois's artistic world.
This exhibition is part of Louise Bourgeois's Asian tour and was organized in collaboration with the Easton Foundation in New York. About 80% of the works are on loan from the foundation, with the remainder coming from the Hoam Art Museum's collection and individual acquisitions.
The exhibition runs until January 4 next year. Related programs include a special lecture by Ewha Womans University Distinguished Professor Frances Morris (October 30), a lecture by poetry researcher Park Seona (November 4), a talk by artist Kim Jiseung (November 26), and a curator talk by Lee Jina (November 19).
Meanwhile, the "Hoam Cafe" within Hoam Art Museum will open on August 29. With the longstanding issue of the lack of a restaurant in the museum finally resolved, visitor convenience will be greatly improved. The cafe is located underground to preserve the landscape, with one wall connecting to the ground level to maximize the view and natural light. In addition to meals and beverages, lunchboxes will also be available for visitors to enjoy while taking in the outdoor scenery.
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