“An uncommonly elegant and evocative portrait... (that) reveals much about this haunting and haunted master. Entrancing ruminations.”
– Nathan Lee, The New York Times
“The nonagenarian artist, as seen in this smart, respectful documentary shot between 1993 and 2007, is something of an exquisite terror. Her work is genius because she refused to restrict [her childhood] memories to the narcissistic banality of personal drama, instead elevating them to myth.”
– Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York
“The filmmakers seem to have developed an unusual intimacy with their subject, and part of this film’s pleasure is in the intergenerational frictions that come up in Bourgeois and Wallach’s conversations. A privileged look into a psyche rendered solid.”
– Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice
“(An) intimate study of her life. Remarkably and unsentimentally self-reflective. Fascinating!”
– New York Magazine
THE BRILLIANT, ICONOCLASTIC LOUISE BOURGEOIS, now 96 and surely the grande dame of the art world, will have a full-career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum
simultaneously with the premiere of this riveting documentary portrait. Co-directed by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach, the movie records Bourgeois at work and play, fashioning
art in her studio and ruminating upon the deep emotional and psychological roots of her work. Bourgeois’s massive spiders, some as large as 30 feet, have been exhibited
throughout the world. They symbolize the maternal impulse, but it is the artist’s passionate connection with various childhood traumas (her father’s live-in mistress being just one)
that fuel much of her groundbreaking work. Critic/curators Robert Storr and Deborah Wye, and the artist’s longtime aide-de-camp Jerry Gorovoy, lend piquant commentary. |
