Louise Bourgeois Quotes
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Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern.
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I found in rules of mathematics a peace and a trust that I could not place in human beings. This sublimation was total and remained total.
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The subject of pain is the business I am in - to give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering. The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses.
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Every day you have to abandon your past or accept it and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.
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One must accept the fact that others don’t see what you do.
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A work of art doesn't have to be explained. If you do not have any feeling about this, I cannot explain it to you. If this doesn't touch you, I have failed.
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A work of art doesn't have to be explained.
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Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - which is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole.
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The feminists took me as a role model, as a mother. It bothers me. I am not interested in being a mother. I am still a girl trying to understand myself.
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Artists have to be useful. They have to fill a role.
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I work like a bee and feel that I accomplish little.
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My art is a form of restoration in terms of my feelings to myself and to others.
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Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.
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My life has been regulated by insomnia.
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Art is a guarantee of sanity.
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I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it was wonderful.
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I have kept a diary as long as I can remember, and drawings are really another kind of diary.
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The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. . . Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother.
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I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.
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If you flatter me, or if you look at me the right way, I will kill myself to please you. It's very painful to be an overachiever.
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To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence.
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Horizontality is a desire to give up, to sleep. Verticality is an attempt to escape. Hanging and floating are states of ambivalence.
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Everything I do is inspired by my early life”, Bourgeois’ looked up to her mother who was the most important person in her life for many reasons, ‘Maman’ symbolizes her mother; “The friend, because my best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and as useful as a spider.
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I do not need the musing of the philosophers to tell me what I am doing. It would be more interesting to let me know why I am doing it.
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Clothing is . . . an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.
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I was raised a Catholic. But I am not religious. In my work, I am interested in real flesh and blood.
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I always had the fear of being separated and abandoned. The sewing is my attempt to keep things together and make things whole.
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When I was growing up, all the women in my house were using needles. I've always had a fascination with the needle, the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It's a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive, it's not a pin.
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You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.
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I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.
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