Louise Bourgeois's Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum

I was fortunate enough to have been able to see Louise Bourgeois's retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, in New York City, in 2008. The show was astonishing! Bourgeois's pieces worked well with the architecture of the Guggenheim - both with their twists and spirals. I would have loved to spend a a week or a lifetime surrounded by her work. I personally loved the Personages and the Cells. Bourgeois' Personages were her first pieces that made me stare, think and pay attention. I was never a big fan of sculptures. But I must say, Louise's Personages doesn't need an explanation - the sculptures speaks for itself.

Bourgeois's work of art moved me, I was even more enthralled when I read about her life and the process of creating her work - the love, emotions, life experiences that went into her art. When she exhibited her Personages for the first time she wanted them attached directly to gallery floor, not on pedestals, she wanted them arranged like a cocktail party with some close together and some alone since most of her work deals with physical closeness or isolation. Bourgeois wanted the gallery visitors to be able to walk among the pieces. Personages are simple, abstract figures, most of them between five and six feet tall, painted black, white or red, they suggest totems or African art.

"For the record. Bourgeois hates the word totem' but it is unavoidable in as much as her work suggest the parallel on psychoanalytic grounds, involving the familial dynamic of 'totem' and 'taboo', as well as on formal."1

Bourgeois's Personages have been described as classic forms of Freudian mourning. She is said to have treated Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, and Constantin Brancusi as artistic father figures whom she admires in order to negate them aggressively.2

Before she moved to New York from Paris, Bourgeois experienced the African influence that was currently impacting on French culture and particularly, the visual arts. Since Goldwater had written 'Primitivism in Modern Painting in 1938, and became the founding Director of the museum of Primitive Art, Africa became forbidden territory for her. Bourgeois wanted to maintain her artistic independence from her husband and was therefore sensitive to the reception of her own work, particularly the Personages of the 1940s and 1950s, as relating to primitive cultures.3

Bourgeois traveled to Nigeria in 1967 with Goldwater. The architecture that she encounter in Yoruba region is visible in her sculpture. Yoruba architecture are similar to Ashanti shrines but with verandahs around the court. The walls were puddled mud and palm oil.4 She subsequently become reacquainted with African Architecture through her son Jean-Louis, who in 1996 published 'Spectacular Vernacular'.5

In this paper, I will be discussing African and Aboriginal totems as one of the potential influences on Louise Bourgeois's Personages. I will also briefly discuss Surrealism as a minor influence to her work and a comparison to Alberto Giacometti 'City Square' and 'The Forest'.

A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe. The term totem is derived from the Ojibwa word 'ototeman', meaning "one's brother-sister kin." The grammatical root, 'ote', signifies a blood relationship between brothers and sisters who have the same mother. It was reported at the end of the 18th century that the Ojibwa named their clans after those animals that live in the area in which they live and appear to be either friendly or fearful. Although the term is of Ojibwe origin in North America, totemistic beliefs are not limited to Native Americans. Similar totem-like beliefs have been historically present in societies throughout much of the world, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the Arctic polar region.6

Totemism is a system of belief in which man is believed to have kinship with a totem or a mystical relationship is said to exist between a group or an individual. It is an object, that serves as the emblem or symbol of a kinship group or a person.7

Totemism is manifested in various forms, and types in different contexts, especially among populations with a mixed economy (farming and hunting) and among hunting communities (especially in Australia.) Totemism can in no way be viewed as a general stage in man's cultural development; but has certainly had an effect on the psychological behavior of ethnic groups, on the manner of their socialization, and on the formation of the human personality.

It is necessary to differentiate between group and individual totemism. These forms share some basic characteristics, but they occur with different emphasis and in different specific forms. For instance, people generally view the totem as a companion, relative, protector, progenitor, or helper, ascribe to it superhuman powers and abilities, and offer it some combination of respect, veneration, awe, and fear.8

Although totems are often the focus of ritual behavior, it is generally agreed that totemism is not a religion. It can certainly include religious elements in varying degrees, just as it can appear conjoined with magic. Totemism is frequently mixed with different kinds of other beliefs, such as ancestor worship, ideas of the soul, or animism. But such mixtures have made the understanding of particular totemistic forms complex.

Group totemism is the most widely disseminated form of totemism. Though the following characteristics can belong to it, they must not be taken to be part of a whole system: (1) mystic association of animal and plant species, natural phenomena, or created objects with related groups such as; lineages, clans, tribes or with local groups and families; (2) hereditary transmission of the totems.9

Group totemism is now found especially among peoples in Africa, India, and Oceania, North America, and parts of South America. People with hunting and partly harvesting economies who exhibit this form of totemism include, among others, the Australian Aborigines (hunters who occupy a special position due to the many forms of totemism among them), the African Pygmies, and various tribes of North America--such as those on the northwest coast (predominantly fishermen), in parts of California, and in northeast North America. Moreover, group totemism is represented in a distinctive form among the Ugrians and west Siberians as well as among tribes of herdsmen in north and Central Asia.10

A group totem is ancestral, traceable through a descent line in the language group. A totem serves as the symbol of, and companion or protector to, the relevant person or group. The totemic affiliation also provides a connection to the spiritual world. The performance

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