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Distruzione del padre. Ricostruzione del padre. Scritti e interviste 1923-2000
Il libro riunisce in successione cronologica la maggior parte degli scritti di Louise Bourgeois sulla propria vita e sul proprio lavoro: dal facsimile di alcune pagine preadolescenziali, tratte da un diario del 1923 smarrito da Louise in treno e recentemente ritrovato su una bancarella parigina, fino a una selezione di interviste e colloqui degli ultimi vent’anni. Tra questi due estremi cronologici figurano un consistente carteggio giovanile con la sua amica e artista Colette Richarme (illuminante sul periodo parigino), testi connessi ai suoi disegni e alle sue sculture (Distruzione del padre/Ricostruzione del padre, Il puritano, Svanì in completo silenzio), articoli di riflessione sull’arte (La genesi di un’opera d’arte, Sul processo creativo, L’arte è salute mentale, La passione per la scultura). Ma non è tutto. Nel corso della vita Louise Bourgeois ha incontrato e frequentato molti fra i principali protagonisti della scena letteraria e artistica contemporanea. Di tali frequentazioni questo volume registra commenti, aneddoti, ricordi di grande suggestione. Attraversano queste pagine, tra gli altri, André Breton e Marcel Duchamp («Breton e Duchamp mi rendevano violenta… il loro pontificare… Essendo un’esule, le figure paterne mi davano ai nervi»), Fernand Léger (suo «maestro»), Mark Rothko, Alberto Giacometti («Era un uomo difficile. Aveva una grande paura di uscire. Era paralizzato dalla paura. Tutti erano gentili con lui, ma era come un bimbo perduto»), Francis Bacon, a cui dedica uno scritto («Guardare i suoi quadri mi rende viva. È quasi come essere innamorati. La sua opera è uno dei più grandi omaggi alla donna»), Robert Mapplethorpe, autore del suo più celebre ritratto. Sono presenti, infine, lettere agli editori, commenti alle proprie opere, dichiarazioni ufficiali tenute in occasione di convegni e premiazioni, brani trascritti dai principali film e documentari a lei dedicati.
Che parli di trame elaborate da alcuni artisti per farsi strada, di Lacan o di Freud (I giocattoli di Freud, 1990), dell’esperienza giovanile nel laboratorio di restauro di tessuti dei suoi genitori – molto presente nella sua opera, anche in tempi recenti –, o del rapporto con il padre, i suoi fratelli e la sua istitutrice, si rimane colpiti dall’intensità delle sue affermazioni e commossi dalla franchezza delle sue risposte.
L’insieme di questi testi consente di completare e correggere la percezione della sua opera, restituendoci un ritratto assai dettagliato dell’artista e della sua personalità, oltre che uno scorcio, in presa diretta, della storia dell’arte del Novecento.
Che parli di trame elaborate da alcuni artisti per farsi strada, di Lacan o di Freud (I giocattoli di Freud, 1990), dell’esperienza giovanile nel laboratorio di restauro di tessuti dei suoi genitori – molto presente nella sua opera, anche in tempi recenti –, o del rapporto con il padre, i suoi fratelli e la sua istitutrice, si rimane colpiti dall’intensità delle sue affermazioni e commossi dalla franchezza delle sue risposte.
L’insieme di questi testi consente di completare e correggere la percezione della sua opera, restituendoci un ritratto assai dettagliato dell’artista e della sua personalità, oltre che uno scorcio, in presa diretta, della storia dell’arte del Novecento.
442 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 1998
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954 people want to read
About the author
Louise Bourgeois
97 books49 followersLouise Joséphine Bourgeois was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and print-maker. She explored a variety of themes over the course of her long career including domesticity and the family, sexuality and the body, as well as death and the unconscious. These themes connect to events from her childhood which she considered to be a therapeutic process. Although Bourgeois exhibited with the Abstract Expressionists and her work has much in common with Surrealism and Feminist art, she was not formally affiliated with a particular artistic movement.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 20, 2015
"To be an artist is a guarantee to your fellow humans that the wear and tear of living will not let you become a murderer.”
Louise Bourgeois on art, integrity, the trap of false humility, and the key to creative confidence – wisdom from a lifetime of her previously unpublished diaries and letters.
Louise Bourgeois on art, integrity, the trap of false humility, and the key to creative confidence – wisdom from a lifetime of her previously unpublished diaries and letters.
February 17, 2018
“Cuando era pequeña, todas las mujeres de mi casa usaban agujas. Siempre he sentido fascinación por las agujas, por el poder mágico de las agujas. Las agujas sirven para reparar los daños. Tratan de conseguir un tipo de perdón. No son nunca agresivas, a diferencia de los alfileres”.
Es probablemente mi cita favorita de todo el libro, y, aunque podría decir que era difícil escoger sólo una, no ha sido complicado elegir esa.
Es un libro al que volveré constantemente. Por necesidad, probablemente. Está cargado de feminismo (muchas referencias a los cuidados y al trabajo emocional), de recuerdos y de todo tipo de pensamientos e ideas sobre el arte.
“Siempre he vivido en ciudades con río” podría ser una metáfora, pero es simplemente Louise Bourgeois <3
Es probablemente mi cita favorita de todo el libro, y, aunque podría decir que era difícil escoger sólo una, no ha sido complicado elegir esa.
Es un libro al que volveré constantemente. Por necesidad, probablemente. Está cargado de feminismo (muchas referencias a los cuidados y al trabajo emocional), de recuerdos y de todo tipo de pensamientos e ideas sobre el arte.
“Siempre he vivido en ciudades con río” podría ser una metáfora, pero es simplemente Louise Bourgeois <3
Want to read
November 29, 2023Saw the Bourgeois exhibition yesterday and oh my gosh!!! I wish they were selling this book there, though. It is out of print, out of stock everywhere :,((
February 4, 2009
not done, but I highly recommend this if you want to get inspired
January 21, 2023
*gaat op zoek naar een Louise Bourgeois cult*
December 15, 2025
es la mejor
August 11, 2011
it's amazing how someone who can express herself so amazingly in visual arts can also have the capacity to write some amazing insights
however the same concepts are discussed over and over and over again
an obsession with her childhood - almost as if none of her grown up years had any influence on her art
however the same concepts are discussed over and over and over again
an obsession with her childhood - almost as if none of her grown up years had any influence on her art
July 27, 2021
Talk about buying a book and leaving in on a shelf for a while: I bought this book back when it was released in 1998, I suspect because there was to be a question about Louise Bourgeois on some qualifying exam during this time when I was a graduate student. Like many books I "read" in grad school, I likely skimmed it to get the gist of it for the exam. The physical book then went into my book storage and I forgot about it. Recently, I wanted to develop a lecture for my classes on Bourgeois, and thought I might dig it out. It has become a bit rare, I think: rather than go digging, I thought I might just re-purchase it. It was hard to find online, and when I did come across a copy, it was expensive. Since 23 years had passed since I bought it, it took a lot of digging to find it, but my husband found it. I finally sat down a few weeks ago to read it cover-to-cover.
Almost everything in Deconstruction of the Father can be found published elsewhere: there are some unpublished pieces of her writing in this compendium, but the majority of it consists of interviews and texts gathered from a variety of previously published sources. However, if one was to try to gather all of those items individually, it would take a lot time and a lot of money. This book brings together 75 years of Bourgeois's writings, letters, interviews, diary excerpts, and thinking about art in one place, making it invaluable to any Bourgeois scholar, teacher, or fan of the works.
Bourgeois was an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum. More has been published since 1998 on her years working with a Freudian psychoanalyst, but this book establishes the basis, through primary source materials, for her constant struggle with her family drama and how that drama reveals itself, over and over again, in her works. Most Bourgeois scholars know the basics: she felt abandoned by her father, who took Louise's English tutor and nanny, Sadie, as a mistress; and she felt abandoned by her mother, who tolerated the father's behavior and then died, abandoning Louise for real. The writings collected in this text illuminate some of the events of her life that then become the basis of meaning for many of her works.
Having the collection of writings put together in this fashion also allows the reader to see reoccurring themes more clearly -- for example, I was surprised at how many times the death of her childhood pet dog, Pyrame, came up and appears in the work -- as well as topics on which Bourgeois contradicts herself (sometimes art is all about sex and death, sometimes it is never about that). In some cases, you can tell that she really hated being interviewed; there's an interview with the BBC where she seems to be breaking things in the presence of the interviewer. She seems to have also had a trepidatious relationship with feminism. Sometimes she admits to being a feminist, and sometimes she doesn't. At one point at the end of the book, she stated in a diary entry from 1992: "The sculpture speaks for itself and needs no explanation. My intentions are not the subject. The object is the subject. Not a word out of me is needed" (p. 364). That line must have been particularly funny to the publisher, who was in the process of publishing a 384-page book of writings that, to the artist, weren't really necessary.
At one point in the writings published herein, she claims she never saw a therapist; we now know that she worked with Dr. Henry Lowenfeld, whom she began seeing for psychotherapy in 1952, after the death of her father, and then again after the death of her husband, art historian Robert Goldwater. This lie is pretty interesting. Bourgeois's essay "Freud's Toys" is included in this collection, and it might have been useful to put in some of the psychological writings that she did while under Lowenfeld's treatment. If she had worked with Lowenfeld for so long, why deny it? The only answers that come to my mind are that the body of free-association writings she did while working with Lowenfeld was too vast to include here, and because Bourgeois was still alive in 1998, and some of that material, unpublished here but published later in other books, was deeply personal. Some things are better left "unsaid" until that point in which the writer is no longer around to admit or deny any of it.
Ultimately though, Deconstruction of the Father is a core primary source text that should be in the library of any serious Bourgeois scholar or sculpture specialist who works on twentieth-century art. That is, if you can get your hands on a copy of it all these years later. Support your local library and read it there.
Almost everything in Deconstruction of the Father can be found published elsewhere: there are some unpublished pieces of her writing in this compendium, but the majority of it consists of interviews and texts gathered from a variety of previously published sources. However, if one was to try to gather all of those items individually, it would take a lot time and a lot of money. This book brings together 75 years of Bourgeois's writings, letters, interviews, diary excerpts, and thinking about art in one place, making it invaluable to any Bourgeois scholar, teacher, or fan of the works.
Bourgeois was an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum. More has been published since 1998 on her years working with a Freudian psychoanalyst, but this book establishes the basis, through primary source materials, for her constant struggle with her family drama and how that drama reveals itself, over and over again, in her works. Most Bourgeois scholars know the basics: she felt abandoned by her father, who took Louise's English tutor and nanny, Sadie, as a mistress; and she felt abandoned by her mother, who tolerated the father's behavior and then died, abandoning Louise for real. The writings collected in this text illuminate some of the events of her life that then become the basis of meaning for many of her works.
Having the collection of writings put together in this fashion also allows the reader to see reoccurring themes more clearly -- for example, I was surprised at how many times the death of her childhood pet dog, Pyrame, came up and appears in the work -- as well as topics on which Bourgeois contradicts herself (sometimes art is all about sex and death, sometimes it is never about that). In some cases, you can tell that she really hated being interviewed; there's an interview with the BBC where she seems to be breaking things in the presence of the interviewer. She seems to have also had a trepidatious relationship with feminism. Sometimes she admits to being a feminist, and sometimes she doesn't. At one point at the end of the book, she stated in a diary entry from 1992: "The sculpture speaks for itself and needs no explanation. My intentions are not the subject. The object is the subject. Not a word out of me is needed" (p. 364). That line must have been particularly funny to the publisher, who was in the process of publishing a 384-page book of writings that, to the artist, weren't really necessary.
At one point in the writings published herein, she claims she never saw a therapist; we now know that she worked with Dr. Henry Lowenfeld, whom she began seeing for psychotherapy in 1952, after the death of her father, and then again after the death of her husband, art historian Robert Goldwater. This lie is pretty interesting. Bourgeois's essay "Freud's Toys" is included in this collection, and it might have been useful to put in some of the psychological writings that she did while under Lowenfeld's treatment. If she had worked with Lowenfeld for so long, why deny it? The only answers that come to my mind are that the body of free-association writings she did while working with Lowenfeld was too vast to include here, and because Bourgeois was still alive in 1998, and some of that material, unpublished here but published later in other books, was deeply personal. Some things are better left "unsaid" until that point in which the writer is no longer around to admit or deny any of it.
Ultimately though, Deconstruction of the Father is a core primary source text that should be in the library of any serious Bourgeois scholar or sculpture specialist who works on twentieth-century art. That is, if you can get your hands on a copy of it all these years later. Support your local library and read it there.
Read
September 7, 2018I was actually looking for an autobiography, this is the closest thing I could find - a recollection of diaries, enterviews and statements. It's an absolutetly stunning book. Louise is obsessed about her childhood - i guess we all are - but she uses it as a force of creation and recollects it so many times you feel engulfed in her personal simbolism - the spider, the penis, the destruction.
I particularly loved her reminescences about this famous Mapplethorpe portrait of her. Look at this old lady holding a penis! Naughty!
But this sculpture is called "fillette" - "little girl" in french - and it represents Louise's view of the phallic symbol - something fragile, that had to be taken care of. As a mother of three boys and a woman in a male-predominant area such as the art world she knew that very well. And she speaks about her impressions of Mapplethorpe and any famous male artist she had to deal with: "this is my attitude towards men, you have to be prepared and work at it. it is a very strange attitude, but it is consistent. you have to prepare everything. you have to feed them, tell them they are great, you literally have to take care of them. they constantly get insulted, they turn what you say into the opposite. I mean, it's really a job"
Her cynism, symbology and and power are so great, read this very slowly to be sure I absorbed it all. I wish she had an autobiography.
I particularly loved her reminescences about this famous Mapplethorpe portrait of her. Look at this old lady holding a penis! Naughty!
But this sculpture is called "fillette" - "little girl" in french - and it represents Louise's view of the phallic symbol - something fragile, that had to be taken care of. As a mother of three boys and a woman in a male-predominant area such as the art world she knew that very well. And she speaks about her impressions of Mapplethorpe and any famous male artist she had to deal with: "this is my attitude towards men, you have to be prepared and work at it. it is a very strange attitude, but it is consistent. you have to prepare everything. you have to feed them, tell them they are great, you literally have to take care of them. they constantly get insulted, they turn what you say into the opposite. I mean, it's really a job"
Her cynism, symbology and and power are so great, read this very slowly to be sure I absorbed it all. I wish she had an autobiography.
August 12, 2021
Libro de cabecera.
November 20, 2021
This is simply the best collection of Bourgeois’ writing in existence. I will reference it forever.
February 2, 2023
Interesting how it backgrounds the art and foregrounds the artist.
October 7, 2025
Gran artista, pensadora, escritora, poeta.
June 11, 2008
Louise Bourgeois has been able to look at her life at a distance which I find to be the hardest things a person can do. She understands people, events, she is able to analyze situations, her personal life and challenge belief systems.
October 25, 2008
I'm in adoration. I wonder if Ms. Bourgeois is in need of an adopted daughter?
August 6, 2010
I am not going to even attempt to review this book because I would end up sounding like a fawning idiot with daddy issues and a penchant for older lady artists.
Seriously.
Seriously.
September 11, 2010
Usually I love diaries and letters. This was all way way too abstract. No blood. No juice. Just complicated thoughts about the relations of forms.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews