The Spider and the Tapestries

In the course of her artistic career, Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) dealt with a variety of different materials and techniques for the purpose of lending direct expression to her emotions. With her tapestries she pursued an act of atonement—in the literal as well as in the metaphorical sense. She sewed scraps of fabric together, engendering new sculptural forms. The practices of weaving, sewing, as well as mending are deeply rooted in Bourgeois’s childhood, whose mother ran a workshop for the restoration of old wall hangings. Nowhere else does the artist so intensely deal with the complex relationship between a mother and child as in her tapestries. Besides numerous archive photographs and facsimiles in the possession of the artist’s family, the reprint of the coveted Hauser & Wirth gallery edition also includes exclusive excerpts from Bourgeois’s psychoanalytical writings.