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Maman (1999), Louise Bourgeois's monumental spider sculpture, stands more than nine metres tall and carries a sac of marble eggs. Bourgeois called it an ode to her mother, who ran the family's tapestry-restoration workshop: like a spider, she said, her mother was a weaver, clever, patient and protective.

Louise Bourgeois

Art

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The original, in steel and bronze with 32 marble eggs, was shown in the vast Turbine Hall when Tate Modern opened in London in 2000. Six bronze casts followed; they stand outside museums including the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Bourgeois's parents restored old tapestries, and as a girl she helped by drawing in the missing parts. Her mother, Joséphine, died in 1932, when Louise was 20. Spiders appear in her drawings from the 1940s, and in her eighties she made a series of large spider sculptures. She kept working until her death in 2010, aged 98.

Türkçe oku
Louise Bourgeois'nın dev örümcek heykeli Maman (1999) dokuz metreden yüksektir ve mermer yumurtalarla dolu bir kese taşır. Bourgeois eseri, ailenin goblen onarım atölyesini yöneten annesine bir övgü olarak tanımladı: annesi de bir örümcek gibi dokurdu; akıllı, sabırlı ve koruyucuydu.

Çelik ve bronzdan yapılan, 32 mermer yumurta taşıyan özgün heykel, Tate Modern 2000'de Londra'da açıldığında müzenin dev Türbin Salonu'nda sergilendi. Ardından altı bronz kopyası döküldü; bunlar Guggenheim Bilbao, Tokyo'daki Mori Sanat Müzesi ve Ottawa'daki Kanada Ulusal Galerisi gibi müzelerin önünde duruyor. Bourgeois'nın anne babası eski goblenleri onarırdı; küçük Louise de eksik kalan parçaların desenini çizerek yardım ederdi. Annesi Joséphine, Louise 20 yaşındayken, 1932'de öldü. Örümcekler 1940'lardan itibaren çizimlerinde görünür; seksenli yaşlarında da bir dizi büyük örümcek heykeli yaptı. 2010'da 98 yaşında ölene dek çalışmayı sürdürdü.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Maman (sculpture)
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WonderHistory

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