Original subtitles

[Woman] Youhave to be veryaggressive to be a scuiptor. Reaiiy.

To have the energy, soyou see something iike this,

you see that it doesn`t hurt anybody.

It`s an inert thing.

And the oniypart is to iook at it and say, ""Gee. ``

You see? You see i m mediately this twisting.

That is to be a sculptor, right.

So it is aggressive. It is.

It means that I- This is- I don`t like it that way.

I want it myway. It is aggressive. Right.

Sowhy not?. [ ciattering]

[ Woman #2 ] It`s aiso a difference in the way...

that we think commoniy women and men act, right?

We think that women add up the smiies and try to piease,

and the men cut through.

[ Woman ] Oh, I see.

I hadn`t thought ofthat.

No, I hadn`t thought ofthat, Amei.

I `m very grateful for your input. [Amei ] Sometimes.

But this is not what I said.

I did not say that women are different from men, because it`s obvious to me.

I don`t have to prove it, right?.

It`s obvious.

But it is difficult to be a woman and to be likable.

You see, this desire to be likable,

it-it-it is a- it is really a pain in the neck.

How areyou going to be likable, huh, and beyourself?.

So there are doubts there. Right.

I`m fuii ofdoubts. Right.

Somebodymight say, ""What is the use ofscuipture?

Why doyou make scuipture? What`s the use of it?``

An artisan wiii say that, you see.

You see, I have a bone ofcontention, as I said, with crafts- craftsmen and artisans,

uh, because theirproofofsuccess...

is reaiiy whether it seiis or not.

Myproofofsuccess is whether it does something to me,

it makes me a nicerperson and it gives me pieasure.

You understand?. This is very, very different.

[ Hammering]

[ Louise ] A scuipture is a probiem to be resoived.

And it is a pieasure to find a soiution. Right.

Afteryou have found the soiution, weii, you iet go ofthe object.

So that the purpose of scul pture is really self-knowledge. Right.

And Montaigne has said that.

Montaigne said, ""Know yourself.``

And I think that ifhe had- ifhe had been given to talk a little bit more,

hewould have said, ""Knowyourselfin orderto be happy.``

That`s what he meant.

[Beii chimes ]

That is whyl was abie to work forso manyyears...

with a compiete ignorance ofthe market.

It is not me who ignored the market.

It is the market who ignored me, and it was okay. You see, it was-

It did not- It did not discourage me at all.

[Amei] But didit seem okayat the time?

Or didat the time didyou sometimes get discouraged byit? No, it was very difficult.

It was very difficult to stand the competition.

But, uh, it was part of a-

It was part of the difficulty. But- So it`s okay.

Because,you see, I did not abandon the work. I kept the work.

I had compiete faith in the work, and I kept it.

[ Metai Squeaking ]

[ Louise`s Voice ] The first state ofaffair I react to is the quaiity ofthe siience.

When I have adjusted to the siience,

then I can adjust to the concentration.

My modei is notyour face, right?

I iook inside, and my modei is reaiiy nice here.

I measure this, and I say, ""Weii, I didn`t reserve enough room...

""to put- to put, uh, the jaws,

""or wiii I never get...

the bridge ofthe nose and the iips. ``

So I never get my-myprofiie. I don`t have enough.

And I -I get myself related to this...

by actually touching and see-

You see how big it is from here to here?.

You have to- You don`t be stingy now.

You have to give yourself a lot of room for here.

And then you turn around and you say,

""Do I have room for my skull??` No. I don`t have it.

It`s too short. Watch out now.

It`s too short. It`s too this. It`s too that.

So it is a fight.

It is a fight with-with-with-with...

your notion ofwhatyou need.

Whatyou need and whatyou get is not the same.

You need something. You want something, and you get something else.

So it is the joining ofthewill and the means that counts.

So the quality ofsilence, I repeat, is everything for me.

I cannot do this and listen to somebody...

tell me, ""Do this, do that.``

Or-Or the people upstairs, uh,

quarreling in a- in a staircase.

This is what I`m afraid. I`m afraid of people quarreling, and that upsets me.

That brings back to me horrible, uh, uh, uh, emotions...

ofbeing terrified by people, uh-

people who-who fought against each other.

I`m not talking about my family.

I`m talking about my terrific effort...

to adjust to the climate ofthe studio when I come in.

Who is this at the door?. Who is this?.

[ Woman ] Uh, it`s the assistant cameraman. Oh, okay, okay.

Okay.

So, shall I go into the history of this piece?.

It might be necessary, because we are in `93,

and this piece here was-was actually-

was actually made, conceived and realized, uh, 40 years ago.

However, my subjects are eternal and recurrent.

[ Phone Rings ] [ Clears Throat ] This-This is okay.

This doesn`t bother us. [ Ringing]

Where were we?.

So, I am- I am very busy now finishing this piece...

which has a long history.

And sure enough, it has the history of a terrific tantrum...

where this little statue-

When somebody contradicted me or made demand on me,

I turned against, uh, my statue, which is wonderful.

Instead ofturning against people, I turn against the statue, which is perfectly safe-

safe, I mean, to a degree- and I pushed it.

I pushed this little statue over.

Lateryou will see it standing up, and- [ Grunts ]

It fell, or rather, well, she lost her head.

And it was a great damage because this is a very elaborate finished little piece.

The head fell down, soJerry, sure enough, pick up the head,

put it back again.

And it took 25 years to get this little piece ready to go out.

The fate ofthe work is really to be destroyed.

It is reallywhat I want.

I want to do the things and express my rage by breaking it.

You understand that my dealer doesn`t like that, and Jerry doesn`t like that.

Jerryworks like a horse all day and I was going to say all night.

Uh,Jerryworks iike a dog. I work iike a dog.

It is not to have the things destroyed when they are aimost finished.

Right. Okay.

Right. So could we move this?.

I have had always an interest...

in, uh- in the runaway girl, right?.

That is to say runaway girl, it is a girl who doesn`t function...

in-in the family, uh, cell verywell,

who is-who is ashamed ofherself for some reason, idiotic reason.

She thinks she`s too fat, too- Usually, she`s too fat.

That was my point. I thought I was too fat, and I was unacceptable.

[Piece Snaps ]

[ Louise`s Voice ] These connection that I make in mywork...

are connection that I cannot face.

They are reaiiy unconscious, uh, connections.

But this is the privi lege of the artist.

That`s why the artist should not be supported by the government.

They should be grateful to be artists.

Uh, the artist has the privilege...

ofbeing in touch with his or her unconscious,

and this is really a gift.

Uh, it is the definition ofsanity.

It is the definition ofself-realization. Right.

Didl answer yourquestion,Jerry?

Whydoyou identify with the runaway?

[ Louise ] You have to read between the iine when I taik,

because it wouid not occur to me...

now in this instance that I run away from-

Obviousiy, I run away from home.

[ Water Fiowing ]

[ Fiowing continues ]

[ Beiis chiming ]

[ chiming continues ]

[ Woman Announcer] She was born in France in 1 9 1 1...

and came to New York in 1 938..

She became part ofthe New York art worid.

Partici pated in all the major movements.

At the age of 7 1, she had a major exhibition...

in the Museum of Modern Art.

For Louise Bourgeois,

it was a beginning ofa concentrated and new faith in herwork.

The 1 0 years which ensued...

brought forth the work ofan unprecedented beauty,

integrity and force.

[ Louise`s Voice ] I have a fear ofhurting peopie.

I never hurt a fly ifyou asked me. Never did.

In fact, I try to repair everything aii day.

So this is the smaii red room.

Uh, it is a strange room. There is iots ofdust.

As you can see here-

Right.

You can see by the shape of the hand...

and the shape of the arm...

that is the room of a child.

And this room has to do with the measurement oftime.

La mesure du temps.

Soyou see aii the hourgiass.

Some work and some do not work too well.

And some do not work at all.

But this one which concern the cooking of an egg...

make us think ofthe measuring oftime,

which has to do, obviousiy, with farawaymemories,

ciosermemories,

forgotten memories,

detestabie memories...

and wonderfui memories.

They`re aii there. Is it a matter ofminutes?

Is it a matter ofyears, centuries,

haifa century, three quarters ofa century?

You know, chiidren, they are aiways compiaining...

that everything is wrong because theirparents did this, theirparents did that.

So my answer as a parent is, ""I do what I can. ``

I never prom ised you a rose garden.

This is it. This is why the rose is here.

Now, to go back...

towards earlier memories-

As I said before, going back in time,

then we have not the chiid`s room, but the parents`room.

You can see that it`s much, much iarger and more reaiistic...

in a sense that it is actuaiiy a doubie bed- reai doubie bed.

Weii, a bed is oniy a bed...

uniess you want it, uh, to be a symboi for something eise.

Accuracy. Are you accurate or are you sioppy in your memories?

You have to be accurate.

And this is given by...

when we iook back at this mirror.

[ Chatteri ng ]

Please don`t call me maman now. No.

You move so that he can take it.

Are you taking Jean-Louis in or- [ cameraman ] Mm-hmm.

Yes or no?. Yes.

So this represent our three dimension.

Vertical dimension, which is like this. [ Squeaking ]

Right. [ Squeaking Continues ]

The horizontal angle, which is like that, right?.

Right.

Right.

And the angle ofthe swivel.

And it has to dowith memories.

That our memories can be distorted.

Yourmemories ofa common event...

wiii be verydifferent from the memory ofthe otherpeopie.

So we talk about the child`s room, red room.

It is red because of the reproaches...

and, uh, a certain kind ofpain there.

And considering we are taiking about red, right- red-

Why red?.

Because red...

is the color of blood,

and so it is the color of pain.

Now, why pain?.

Uh, why pain?. Well, it`s obvious.

It is obvious.

Okay.

So that`s it.

No? [JerrySpeaking, Indistinct]

Sorry to say. It`s obvious.

I`m afraidyou have to work byyourseifa iittie bit.

[ Woman Singing Aria ]

[Jean-Louis `s Voice ] The famiiy had a converted stone barn...

with wonderfui thick waiis.

We spent summers there...

and sometimes weekends.

And the famiiy was usuaiiy there together, which was nice.

It was reaiiy a refuge.

It feit safe.

My mother wouid take, um, pieces ofbaisa...

that were about this size and, um- and carve them.

Uh,

I remember many, many days of this and weeks of this happening or maybe even longer.

And she would bring them to the kitchen table, and she would just carve.

She useda tiny, um, knife with a verysmaii biade.

And she would carve and shave these pieces...

with the famiiy.

And it wouid be iike anotherwoman`s knitting.

[ Louise ] There is a drawing thatJean-Louis reiates to, and it is this.

Can you put your hand- [Jean-Louis ] Jerry?

[ Louise ] I don`t know if it is well lighted.

Here we go. It`s complicated. [ Laughs ]

Yeah, that`s right. That`s right.

Jean-Louis with the red shirt has red hands,

and Jerrywith the blue shirt has the blue- blue hands.

Right. [ chiidren chattering]

And this has to do with...

the transportation ofwounded people.

So the person sits there. Do you want me to sit- sit there?.

So this is what it represents.

I don`t know ifJerrywill be able to-

You see, I`m-I`m as light as a feather. Definitely.

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Let`s lift up. Can we lift up a little?. [ Laughing ]

I`m as light as a feather, okay?. Yeah, your feet are offthe foor.

Right. My feet are offthe foor. [ All Laughing ]

Can we put the feather down?. Okay.

[ Laughing ]

So what`s the moral ofthe story?. Why are you interested in this pose again?.

What madeyou think ofthatpose? What`s the metaphor?

[ Louise ] No, no. It`s not a metaphor. It is a souvenir.

It was done in the trenches during the war.

Since my father was in infantry and he was used to, uh-

He was used to do that.

What I recal I are trai ns after trai ns after trains...

going from the front to the inside of, uh-

ofthe country fuii ofwoundedpeopie.

[ Speaking French ]

And, uh, so that the civil population would not see it,

they traveled by night.

But you could hear the siren ofthe train passing by.

So this is where it comes- comes back.

How doyou take care of- How doyou take care ofwounded people?.

Okay, so that`s it. [Amei]Andyourfather was wounded, right?

Yes, he was wounded, but, uh, he was evacuated, uh, to Chartres.

He had a wound in his arm and was never transported iike that.

[Jean-Louis ] WasJosephine abie to visit him in chartres?

Yes. Yes. Right. She was? She was?

- Yes, of course. - Didyou go with- Didyou go with her?

Yes. We have iots ofphotographs. [Amei ] But, Louise, you went to the front iines, didn`tyou?

No. Never. No women were aiiowed on the front.

But we were aiiowed in the hospitais.

[ Gorovoy ] Wel l, you can tel I how old Louise is. There`s a picture of Louis in Chartres.

And here`s Louise at chartres in 1 91 5. [Jean-Louise ] She was three.

Four.

[ Louise ] I must be more than four there. I must be six,, no?

[Jean-Louis ] She was born on christmas, 1 9 1 1. [ Gorovoy] Eieven. And this is 1 9 1 5.

[ Louise`s Voice ] I was born in Paris at the outbreak ofthe 1 9 1 4 war.

And the first thing I knew is that my father ieft for the war,

and it made my mother very nervous.

Uh-

And I remember- I remember, uh-

I remember her nervousness,

and I remember mypain at the time, even though I was very iittie.

And, uh, she wasn`t happy.

And, uh-And she started to foiiow my father...

from camp to camp.

And, uh, my brother and my sisters were left home...

with my grandparents.

And I was carried around by my mother...

to meet him in different- in different places in France.

When the warwas over,

as happened in many coupie, he had changed, and he was going to enjoy himseif.

And from then on, he ran after women.

It is not uncommon in France.

I t is even very com mon.

For wom- Men-

Men are frantic, and women are sad.

[ Man Singing in French ]

[ continues ]

[ continues ]

[ continues ]

[ continues ]

[ Gorovoy] But I`m just saying it was-

What I think is interesting- In order to estabiish the American schooi and the American-

U h, so the-the-the question here would be, ""What do you want??`

You have asked me, ""What did you want??`

""What did you want??`

""What did you want??` To be useful.

What I wanted is to have an itineraire unique. That is it.

[Amei] Your ownjourney. My own journey. This is it.

For instance, ifyou had a map,

and-and-and you have a-

This is- This is the itinerary oflife. Right?.

You`re born here. You finish up here.

And what haveyou done, huh?. What haveyou done with the damn thing?.

This is it. And I chose it.

And every time there was a turn,

I made the decision you go right oryou go left oryou go forward.

It was my itineraire unique.

[Amei] Andwhen didyou become aware ofthat?

When did that become a conscious thought? Uh, very, very lately.

I n fact, this year.

Because, of course, there is here, the eminence grise.

You know eminence grise, what it means?

- [Amei ] Yes. Areyou eminence grise? - No. He is.

Oh, he is. [ All Laughing ]

And he`s always there, and nobody knows it, but he`s there.

He`s an eminence grise. Right.

You do not know him, but you know him by the results, not by his presence.

Uh, now, what- I lost it. We were taiking about-

[ Gorovoy`s Voice ] There was a gaiiery across the street caiied Max, Hutchinson.

This was eariy in the beginning ofSoHo.

So I worked there part time.

One day he said, ""Why don`tyou do a show?``

So I decided to do this show caiied ""Ten Abstract Scuiptures. ``

And I wanted to show Louise.

Louise wasn`t that known. She wasn`t showing that much.

Louise came down, and she flipped out.

This was before the opening. She didn`t iike where herpiece was.

So- And I thought, ""Oh, God. ``

You know, this woman`s I i ke a difficult bitch.

She should be lucky she`s in the show.

This was my first show. She threatened to pull the piece out.

I was like, ""Okay.

Let`s just go for a cup of coffee.``

So we went to Food. I think it was Food.

And we sat and we talked. `Cause I had never met her before.

I rememberwalking back after, and she was quite forceful, Louise.

But then she was walking back.

And I think it was a cobblestone. She fell down.

And it just touched me the way that just slightly she fell down.

I picked her up.

Somehow she let the piece stay in the show. She sort of calmed down.

`Cause Louise has this thing. I thinkwhen she`s nervous, which I learned later-

that when Louise is nervous, she attacks.

Shortiyafterthat opening, she invited me to herhome in cheisea.

And so I went to her house,

and she had an incredibie body ofwork everywhere.

Louise is not into decoration.

Apparentiy, when her husband died after that, that was probabiy the iast time she had anything.

It was very functionai. Writing on the waiis, ciippings, and this and that.

The whoie house was reaiiy iike one ofher scuiptures, I wouid come to iearn,

when I got a sense of it.

But it was reaiiy that fusion ofher iife and art that reaiiy attracted me...

in terms ofwhere I was coming from.

As I said, you know, the `8.0s, there was a shift.

You know, the Greenberg formaiism was sort of on the out.

My generation was interested in narrative,

interested in issues ofgender and sex,uaiity,

interested in mining a whoie nother kind of imagery.

And so Louise, you know, had been mining that area for a iong time.

For me, Louise was the reai Mccoy.

There was no separation for her art and her iife.

You know, the reiationship ofseif-portraiture.

The whoie body ofwork reaiiy is iike a seif-portrait.

[ Man Singing In French ]

[ continues ]

[ Louise ] Andyou find a stand. [ Woman ] Downstairs?

[ Louise ] Okay. Not downstairs. No. Don`t start now.

[ Woman ] You`re instaiiing- [ Indistinct ] [ Louise ] No. Absoiuteiy not.

[ Woman ] Why not? [ Louise ] Because it wiii disturb me.

You want me. It is- It is fake.

[ Woman ] It`s fake? [ Louise ] Yes, it is fake to say thatyou see the production.

To me it is ex,cruciating to make it. Right.

And I`m not an actress.

[ Woman ] I don`t want to- [ Louise ] No. Don`t try to heip me.

That is why we need a stand four feet high.

You iook around in the piace andyou find a stand.

So it is the maki ng of a hairpin...

which I am always short of-

You see, the hairpin is indispensable, and I never have any. Right?.

Okay, so that`s it.

[Man Narrating] Wejust iiked each other. It`s as simpie as that.

I caii hermy French mistress. Very good.

And she is in a way. So we are almost ready?.

[ cameraman ] Mm-hmm. [ Man Narrating ] There`s a very direct emotionai bond.

Honestly, I think it`s her pain level that I got.

And you go full circle this way.

[ Storr] She generates energy, and she generates psychoiogicai energy.

She`s aiso a vampire, which means she sucks up psychoiogicai energy.

Andyou have to be very carefui. She can be very wounding ifyou aiiow her to be.

So it doesn`t work I i ke this.

So you try the other side.

She`s done it to everybody one time or another.

More than one time usually, if they stick around.

Um, but most ofthe time, she`s putting energy out, you know,

and she`s creating a world that`s more interesting than it would be ifshe wasn`t there.

I met herin 1976 in December, andl reaiiyrememberit.

I rememberwalking down 20th Street, and there was a little bit of snow on the ground...

and going up to her door and ringing the bell.

Um, a couple of months before,

I had seen two ofherworks when I was visiting New York.

I was living in Boston at the time,

and, um, I saw herwork at the Max Hutchinson Gallery.

Andforsome reason it reaiiydrewme.

She was sitting in the front room,

and she had a siide projector on with many trays ofher work.

And so wejust sat there, and we didn`t taik very much,

but shejust kept showing me different siides ofher work.

I just sat there.

And I stayed for several hours, and I was totally taken.

I was, like, in her power. I don`t know how else to describe it.

I-I couldn`t believe herwork. I couldn`t believe what she was like.

And, um, I just left there thinking just-

It was a transformative event in myiife reaiiy.

[ Louise ] So this is the scene ofthe murder.

This is the parent`s room.

And here is the escape.

I love that.

[ Wye`s Voice ] I guess my training and my thinking,

you know, from having studied in the `60s and `70s, eariy `70s,

I think it was, uh, a way ofiooking at art...

that had to do with the formal aspects of a painting or a sculpture.

shapes, color, line, texture-

how those affected the meaning.

The art world was pretty much like ifyou were not doing this formalist abstraction,

it was, like, considered passe...

or narrative orwhatever, literary.

It wasn`t purely, you know-

And I think that that`s why Louise, um, was a little bit on the fringe.

She reallywasn`t well known and, um,

you could even say ignored for a certain time.

In the mid-`70s, I think that started to change.

What art couid be was being ex,piored.

There were aii kinds ofprotest movements going on at that period.

So there were other kinds ofthings that came in art.

For me, it reaiiy occurred because ofLouise.

[ Drums Beating ]

[ No Audi ble Dialogue ]

[ No Audible Dialogue ]

[ Chanting ] Culture is not elite!. WAC is watching!

Culture is not elite! WAC is watching!

[Demonstrator] Who`s art? Ourart!

It was the opening show- the opening show ofthe downtown Guggenheim.

It was their inaugural show. So, uh, the Guerilla Girls had the idea...

to protest the, uh, show, and we published this card.

Doyou wanna- Doyou wanna read the card?.

Yeah. I wrote the card, so I should be able to read it. Um, here`s the card.

We sent it to Thomas Krens at the Guggenheim Museum Downtown,

575 Broadway. And it was sent on January 23, 1 992.

""Dear Mr. Krens- Welcome to downtown.

""We`ve been hearing all aboutyour opening show,

"""FourWhite Boys at the White Boys Museum.`

Lots ofluck.``

We circulated hundreds ofthese cards to, um-

To art lovers and art world people. WAC members.

A lot ofthese cards ended up on his desk.

Hundreds and hundreds ofthem piled up on his desk.

And at the very last minute they added Louise Bourgeois...

and changed the name ofthe show to be ""From Brancusi-to-Bourgeois.``

So we thought that our tactics had been successful.

Evidentiy, it worked. Yeah.

Also, Louise had been an icon for the Guerilla Girls.

She was, um, the subject of one ofthe lines...

in our ""The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist`` poster.

Where is that poster?. Where`s that poster?.

We brought that poster. It`s in one ofthose bags. It`s over there somewhere.

[ Speaking, Indistinct ] Okay.

Can you read it?. What does it say?.

""Knowing thatyour career might pick up afteryou`re 80`` is one ofthe lines.

She was a symboi ofsomebody who`d been around fora iong time...

and then did actually get some acknowledgment at a later point in life.

I think that was very inspirational for many people. Mm-hmm.

Although, she herself, as I understand it,

does not believe that she is a feminist.

She believes she is an artist first and not a- not a feminist per se.

That didn`t stop us.

Whether she likes it or not, she`s our icon. [ Laughs ]

[ Speaking, Indistinct ]

[Protesters chanting] [Drums Beating]

[Drums continues ] [ Whistie Biowing]

[ Drums continue ] [ chanting continues ]

[ Louise`s Voice ] Generaiiy, I iike my teachers.

By teacher, I meant peopie who were much oider than I was.

So Brancusi was very oid at the time.

I think it was, uh, in `50s. I know it was `53.

He was very oid at the time, and it was a kind ofa cruciai moment in his iife,

where he was fi rst self-supporting and a very strong man.

You know, lifting those enormous things, those pieces oflumber.

He did that because he was verytaii and verystrong.

And then suddeniyhe became oid, and he couidn`t do it anymore.

And that was the changing- the changing time.

I happened to meet him...

when his studio was much smaiier than my studio in Brookiyn.

I t was very smal l. So it was cluttered, you see.

He had a shape like this, then suddenly he had something to do,

so he put that shape on another shape and another shape.

And that`s why it`s a series ofvases that are put on top of each other.

Pillars. Theywere pillars.

And this never came to his mind. I don`t know ifhe had one.

But it- [Laughing]

It never came into his consciousness that theywere piiiars.

That`s it.

[Amei ] So iike The Endless Column. Piiiars in that sense- phaiiic.

I didn`t say that. You said that. I did.

They were pillars...

because the pillars had a symbolic reminiscences...

ofthose- the things that he saw in his- in his youth.

And I don`t know ifhe- ifhe realized...

that mother image ofthe pillar.

But he- he made it.

Naturally, it came thatway.

And then when you are angry at the motherfigure,

you take the pillar, you know, and you cut it in pieces.

That I know.

And so it becomes- It reverts-

It reverts to the origin- original shape.

That is a seat. It is a seat, right. That`s true.

Becomes a seat.

You push it sideways, it becomes another seat a little lower.

And then when he feels good- when he feels good,

he feels that people like him, and maybe he likes the people a little bit.

Then he builds up his spirits again. Okay?.

So it is like a game, a game ofa child.

You do it, and then you undo it,

and then you redo it,

and that is, uh- that`s theway I see him.

[ Gorovoy] The size andpattern- The actuai form.

[ Louise ] Marion, are we through?

[ Louise ] And-And, uh, [ Footsteps Approaching ]

the new chapter is caiied ""The Seamstress, the Mistress. ``

[Amei ] The Seamstress, the Mistress. [ Louise ] Right. Right.

[ Marion ] The Seamstress and the Mistress. [ Louise ] Right.

The theme ofthe mistress are erotic drawings,

but there is another thing which is very, very deep,

which is the seamstress.

I did not go around iooking at the- at the needie workers.

I didn`t do that, but I wouid sit and watch the seamstress.

You know what she was doing?

She was repairing the pants ofmy father.

That was herjob.

She was repairing the pants. She was repairing-

She was doing the iittie brassieres for me.

She was- She was cutting, sewing...

and, uh, finishing some iittie panties for me.

Right? And everything went into that-that room.

That iinen room.

That was the most important room in the house...

because probabiyyou iearned about-

In the- In the iinen room, you iearned about, uh,

bodyparts and sex, and so on. Mm-hmm.

[ Gorovoy`s Voice ] One day, she goes, "Jerry, go upstairs and bring aii the ciothes downstairs in the cioset. ``

And so I bring down aii these ciothes.

The nex,t thing I know, she starts putting the garments in order.

The nex,t thing I know, she`s cutting, she`s stuffing.

And aii ofa sudden, this is the raw materiai for her nex,t body ofwork.

So iike everything in Louise, it`s coming from manypoints.

It`s aiso another form ofa diary for her. And I think maybe on a very-

I know on a certai n level, she knew if she processed this as art,

no one was gonna throw it out.

[ Louise`s Voice ] The originai idea started with a verbai siip...

when I said that the beautifui ciothes were a bone ofcontention...

between my two parents.

They bickered among themseives ofwhoever wouid dress me the best.

My father wouid say, ""Ah!

Didyou see that iittie Paui Poiret that I got for her?``

And my mother wouid say, ""Oh, it`s not bad,

but coco chanei is better."`

That is where it aii started.

[ Chatteri ng ]

I have one question. Why is the piece called confrontation?

Because all these boxes confront each other...

and all these boxes represent one of us.

And theyhave to take theirpiace in the circie...

and face themseives,

uh, in front ofthe others.

Nothing can, uh, iet us escape this confrontation.

We have to come to terms with- with ourselves, with how bad we are.

[ Woman ] How bad we are? How bad we are.

[ Storr] For this performance, one ofthe first times, when she sort ofrounded up her band...

of, you know, the hoie-in-the-waii gang that she created for herseif...

of, you know- you know, maie stripper,

woman performing artist, who caterwauis the ""She Abandoned Me, `` aii this stuff.

And then she invited the art worid. And she co-opts a number ofpeopie ofnote...

into this sort oftravesty ofthe fashion show...

and ofthe body and ofmascuiinity and femininity and so on.

[ Woman chattering ]

Everyone just disappeared.

J ust like my mother.

[ Vioiin ] She abandoned me.

She abandoned me.

She

Abandoned [ Laughter]

Me

She abandoned

Me

She

Abandoned

Me

A long, long, long

Time ago [ Applause ]

You are not listening!

You are not listening to me becauseyou are afraid ofme.

Right?. But I don`t mind that. I understand it.

I am going to repeat.

And then Amei comes and says, ""No, you cannot repeat it...

because the onlyversion that is valid is the spontaneous one.``

[Amei] You`re misquoting me. I am quoting you.

[Man On Tape Piayer, Indistinct]

[ Stops Tape Piayer] [ Gorovoy ] Wait a second.

[ Louise On Tape Player ]

Okay, we`ll record over it. Okay. [ Louise ] No, butyou see, it`s too iate.

[ Marion ] No, I won`t put it in, Louise. No, no, I don`t want it.

[ Wye`s Voice ] She aiways was so- aimost seif-destructive...

in terms ofpeopie who wanted to show her work...

orpeopie who wanted to write about her work.

Shejust put up so many roadbiocks.

Even her dealer, who was Xavier Fourcade, didn`t know how much work she had at the time.

And so he would ask me, ""How much work??`

And she would do funny things, like bring me down into the basement-

this was really the lowest basement- and turn on the light.

And I would look around and see all this work. I couldn`t believe it.

And-And she would then shut the light and say,

""I`ve showedyou too much. I`ve showedyou too much."` [ Laughs ]

And I had a tremendous amount of research.

And so I had the idea of proposing that MoMA do a show.

And I had only been working here a couple ofyears at that point.

Andljust wrote a memo to Biii Rubin that I had been working on this,

and that,you know, there was no book on Louise at this point.

But I didn`t know at that time that I wouid be the one to do it.

[ Peopie chattering ]

[ camera Shutter ciicks ]

[ Louise`s Voice ] A iot of, uh, peopie are so obsessed...

by the past that they die of it.

This is the attitude ofthe poet who never finds the iost heaven,

and it is reaiiy the situation ofartists who work for-

for a reason that nobody can quite grasp,

ex,cept that they might want to reconstruct something ofthe past.

It is that the past, for certain peopie, have such a hoie-

[ Storr] The, um, siide show basicaiiy that was used at the Modern...

was the first time that the mistress story came out as such.

Because the suppiement that she did for Art Forum and the siide show that Geraid and I did...

was the first time that the mistress story was reaiiy being discussed by her.

[ Louise`s Voice ] This is the mistress showing off aii in white.

The story ofSadie is to me aimost as important as the story ofmy mother in my iife.

She was introduced in the famiiy as a teacher for Pierre and myseif.

She siept with my father and she iived in the house.

She was there for 1 0years in the formative years ofmy sister and myseif.

The motivation for the work is a negative reaction against her.

It shows that it is reaiiy the anger that makes me work.

Aii my work ofthe iast 50years,

aii my subject have found their inspiration in my chiidhood.

My chiidhood has never iost its magic.

It has never iost its mystery, and it has never iost its drama.

My mother, who was a perfectionist,

she was a tapestry woman in Aubusson.

Repaired her tapestry with fast coiors, vegetabie coiors...

that she dyed herseif.

This is why we iived on the creuse in Aubusson and iater on the Bievre.

The water is fuii oftannin...

which is indispensabie as a biting agent for the fiber.

This is the kind oftapestry we deait with.

When it was washed, it was iifted up.

And then two at one end and two at the other wouid twist the tapestry.

And it was then set to dry and then repaired.

It is a signature styie.

The signature style is the twisting and many-

You have it right there.

Many- Many theme has come- have come from the twisting.

[Amei] The spirai and the twisting, the two themes. That`s right, the same thing.

[Amei ] And so why doyou think that twisting impressedyou so much?

Was it frightening? Was it impressive?

No, it was- it was so... efficient.

It is oniy efficient.

[ Marion ] It`s powerfui too. Very.

[Amei ] And do you remember the coiors coming out ofthe water?

The coiors did not come out ofthe water.

This is a cruciai question because the dyeing ofthe- [ Fades ]

Is to iook at it and say ""gee."`

You see?. You see, i m mediately this twisting.

That is to be a scuiptor.

[ Gorovoy`s Voice ] I think in a strange way, iooking back when Louise had the show in `8.2,

that moment she toid the story ofthe mistress and Sadie, and a stranger was iike,

""That was a big mistake because peopie wiii use that to interpret the work, `` which is crazy.

The work is much more compiex, than, you know- than that story.

[ Man Singing In French ]

[ Storr`s Voice ] First ofaii, she had had this very iong, piatonic affair with Aifred Barr,

who was the founding director ofthe Museum ofModern Art.

Barr had to do with her meeting Robert Goidwater...

in, I guess, it was, `38..

Goidwater was in France. He was finishing up his Ph.D. thesis for Harvard...

which was Primitivism and Modern Art, which was a pioneering thesis...

on the reiation ofmodern art to the art of chiidren to the art ofthe insane...

and to the traditions oftribai art.

[Jean-Louis ] My father was an ex,tremeiy inteiiigent man,

a remarkabie thinker and writer.

And he was interested in African art...

and was the director ofthe Museum ofPrimitive Art for its entire ex,istence...

before it was incorporated into the Metropoiitan.

Yes, I met hi m at the library and, uh-

and he was interested.

He was sent- He was sent to me by Aifred Barr.

Which one came first, I don`t remember.

And the warwas declared and all the Americans left.

And Robert said,

""No, I`m not leaving unless-

I`m not leaving unless Louise comes with me.``

Right. `Cause I have no more mother...

and the mistresses were all around...

and nothing to- nothing to-

No reason to stay there.

[Louise`s Voice ] The space in New York I thought was breathtaking.

The skywas so big and the skyiine was so- so open.

And the sky ofNew York is a very biue, very ciear sky.

So it was- it was a very beautifui iandscape to me.

[ Louise`s Voice ] I suffered from an acute homesickness.

To recreate the famiiy consteiiation...

heiped me overcome or endure this- this nostaigia.

So that whoie period is about la nostalgie, ou la mal du pays,

which is a form ofmourning.

It reminds me ofa period ofwhich foiiows my- my coming to New York.

At a time when- [ Clears Throat ]

a iot offather figures appeared on the scene.

As you aii know, the surreaiists came over, en masse.

First, Max, Ernst,

and then- and then Marcei Duchamp.

[ Men Laughing ] [ Man Speaking French ]

[ Louise ] And then Andre Masson and then Andre Breton.

That whoie group ofpeopie...

made me violent because they were very close to me...

and because I objected to them violently.

Maybe I objected to theiriordiymanner,

to theirsuccess, to their ""pontificaiite."`

Weii, considering my running away from home, from my country and from my father,

it was obvious that any father figures appearing...

from France onto these shores...

was going to- was going to...

rub me the wrong way, and it did.

[ Louise ] It means that whatyou want to say and is not said, is that-

"" Do you like your father??` "" No, I don`t.``

I have not made peace with my father yet.

And I have not made peace with surrealism.

This is it.

That is why I identified with Fran�oise Sagan.

Fran�oise Sagan is a sister to me. [Amei] Reaiiy?

This is almost my story.

And Fran�oise Sagan is my sister, that`s it.

[Amei] That`s right. Because it`s about a seductive fatherwho-and she`s-

And she murders. She murders the mistress. That`s right.

She manipuiates. She organizes...

the mechanics of- ofthe mistress `s death on the road.

And this is the connection with camus- [ Fades ]

[Amei ] What was it about Goidwater that attractedyou in the beginning- in the very beginning?

[ Louise ] That he was the ex,act opposite-

absoiuteiy ex,act opposite ofmy father.

But in a very strange way.

In temperament, he reminded me ofmy mother. Yes.

And I have ex,piained that when I taik about The Spiders-

a certain kind of temperament.

[Amei ] Ex,piain it.

Oh, no, I have talked so much about The Spiders.

The Spiders are all over the place... and they have been-

The Spiders have been my most successful subject.

So I must be convincing.

[ Beii Sounding]

[ Louise`s Voice ] Theymust carry a message.

A message ofthe temperament I iove.

[ Louise`s Voice ] The Spider is mymother, beiieve it or not.

That is to say the person who`s totaiiy reiiabie,

totaiiy inteiiectuai,

totaiiy iogicai with no burst ofpassion.

I reaiiy don`t appreciate the passion.

[ Object cianging Loudiy]

It is my mother, not oniy that, but I try to imitate her.

I try to be as smart as she used to be.

[ Louise ] So there are these things sticking out there.

Right. So another- another quality of this...

is that they can be banged around, right.

I hope I`m not wrong, but they can be banged around and they can take a lot.

Yeah, they can take it. They have to take a lot.

Now, to be specific, uh, it took months.

Let us say it took six months.

The Spider project was that long.

But it had many precedents. So you see ie fii?

Le fii de i`araignee is exemplified by this.

You see them?. Right?.

It is endless. [ Speaking French ]

I`m interested in peopie which-

who instead ofanaiyzing, put things together.

Right? They see something here...

and they see something there and nobody sees any connection.

But I see a connection and this is the vaiue ofmy work.

[ Women, computerized Voices ] So hoid me, Mom

In your iong arms

So hoid me, Mom

In your iong arms

In your automatic arms

Your eiectronic arms

[ Louise`s Voice ] The Spider, it is an ode to my mother.

To go a iittie further, it represents a reconciiiation.

[ Women, computerized Voices ] So hoid me, Mom

In your iong arms

[ Louise`s Voice ] That is to say, I try terribiy hard...

to be the thinking...

and the caicuiating person that my mother was.

Unfortunateiy, I don`t make it very weii...

and I am much more gifted and happy...

with the work of emotion that my father represented.

This is what I wanted to say. So I am torn apart between the two.

I inherited my mother`s inteiiect...

and my father`s sick heart.

[Jean-Louis `s Voice ] I suspect it happened just before her father died.

Louise cooked this magnificent ieg ofiamb one day.

Her four men where there and...

we did the stupidest thing possibie.

We were speechiess because Louise didn`t cook often.

And Louise was furious.

We iived three flights up and she reacted...

by taking the ieg ofiamb and throwing it out the window.

So we aii went to the window and iooked...

to see where the ieg ofiamb had roiied.

And I was dispatched.

I went to the right car and crawied under and got the ieg ofiamb.

The lam b was absol utely studded with gravel.

And, uh, I brought it back upstairs,

took it over to the kitchen sink, where it was washed...

and we sat down and ate it without a word.

Inyour eiectronic arms

[Amei] Louise,you don`t aiiow yourseifto waste time?

[ Louise ] That`s right. That`s right.

What wouid wasting time consist of?

Being ungratefui for the time which is given to you.

[ chiidren Shouting, Laughing ]

Does that sound make you gratefui?

Yes, it indicates the time ofthe day. It means that it is 1 2:00.

Is that right? [ Laughs ] Yes, right.

Because the kids are out there? Yes, right.

Yes, we m ight talk while J ean-Louis is still here.

Right.

Aii these drawings are done during the night.

[ Papers Rustiing]

Teii me when I can-

[ Marion ] I`m just foiiowing your movements, so this is great. Ri ght.

Okay. They are al I different.

And there is one which is a giveaway.

You see this one?.

That is the giveaway which does not appear in any of the others.

Took me a long time to know what-what they meant.

[ Gorovoy] It`s the oniyfigure in the whoie thing. It`s the oniyfigure in the whoie thing.

Though there she is,

as cozy as can be because-

because the world is in order. [ Phone Rings ]

And it says, The Worid In Order.

It is the title of the thing.

And there she is, and she`s resting because all these houses relate to each other.

And she feels better.

That obviously then the night indicates...

a certain fear of chaos.

So I do the houses until I feel-

I feel peaceful and I fall asleep.

And there are dozens ofthem.

And they are all different.

[ Gorovoy] I thought it was interesting to hearyou mention Paris-

thatyou had actuaiiymet Louise`s father- and I thought that that was quite interesting.

You were veryyoung, you said, the first time.

But I rememberyou toid me your reaction to Louise`s father.

You wanna hear about that?. [Amei ] Definiteiy.

[Jean-Louis ] Okay, um- We were living in Stuyvesant`s Folly.

[Jean-Louis ] No, no, this happened at the dinner, at, uh-

on the Boulevard Saint-Germain- the famous dinner-

It wasn`t dinner. And he prepared- And there was- there was-

[ Mutters ] No, it was a huge- It wasn`t at-

He was sitting at the head ofthe table, someone else was carving.

So he was a big eater and you could not interfere with his meals.

[Jean-Louis ] The veryfirstpiece ofmeat that was carved-

It was beautiful.

He reached all the way across the table and stabbed it.

And-And ate it instantiy.

And it wasjust this, uh-

this hunger- this lust for protein was-

[ Laughs ] [Aii Laughing]

Was extreme to say the least.

So he frightened everybody. [Jean-Louis ] Yeah.

[ Storr`s Voice ] But it is aii around that time, `50, `51.

Her father died, um, unex,pectediy.

This reiationship had been bitter before,

and was recentiy more bitter again.

He had never taken her seriousiy as an artist, that is to say the father.

She had not taken herseifseriousiy as an artist.

I mean, I don`t think the sense that she didn`t take her own work seriousiy,

but she didn`t believe she had it in her to be an artist in a professional sense.

And she was constantly doubting her abilities.

She hadhad quite a iot ofsuccess bythe standards ofthose days.

She was in the Modern`s coiiection as of`50, `51.

Louise was often the oniy woman in shows...

with other- ofthe abstract ex,pressionists and so on.

It`s that same cruciaiyears between basicaiiy `46, `47..

and `53 when she pretty much stopped showing.

But you read her diary and it`s full of self-questioning and anger.

And, uh,you know-

It`s an enormous effort forher.

Meanwhiie, she aiso wanted to be the perfect wife...

ofan esteemed inteiiectuai in New York.

She threw parties, she cooked, she dressed, she did aii these things.

She was the mother to sons, but I think had a terribie time doing it,

and not necessariiy did it very weii.

And aii this together sort ofconverged, I think,

and when her father died it aii came unstuck.

[Jean-Louis `s voice ] She withdrew in her grief.

So she wasn`t-

She, uh-

She basical ly went to bed for a long time.

She just was, uh, devastated...

and, uh, spent-

would spend, um,

most ofher days in bed for- for quite some time.

[Louise ] Tangerine.

The word is a stimuii forme.

If I start drawing a figure...

on the tangerine, right,

Iittle by little, the past is going to reemerge.

And I will be able to verbalize it. That`s it.

Now, this is not mywork ofart. It was my father`s work ofart.

Around the end ofthe dinner, on Sunday,

he would take his tangerine and he would stand up and announce...

that he was making a little portrait ofhis daughter.

And he had a way of, after drawing it-

he had a way of cutting it.

Right. Soyou have to be very careful on the cutting.

Ifyou cut the wrong thing, you are in a bad way.

And I do not mean this as a pun. [ Clears Throat ]

So, you lift up all these shapes...

thatyou have drawn, and then cut.

So the drawing, the cutting, and the lifting, right.

And then when you reach the navel,

the core would come out.

This is the moment you would look inside...

and the core was fantastic.

He would marvel at it. Right?.

And we were supposed to marvel at it too. Right?.

Look.Just look. How impressive.

Then he would turn and say, ""Well, I am sorry...

""that my daughter does not exhibit such beauty.

""Because my little figure is very rich,

and obviously my daughter doesn`t have very much there.``

The iittie creature wasjust a giri.

Maybe the audience, who never- neverpeeped,

since they were being fed.

They never peeped and maybe- maybe some of them felt sorry for us.

But I didn`t realize that.

I`m not, uh- I`m not saying that theywere sorry.

I am saying that at the time I felt that theywere laughing at us.

Theywere not- Theywere not laughing with us. Theywere laughing at us.

[Voice Cracking ] And the pain was very great.

You can see that after 50 years, for somebodywho doesn`t cry-

for after 50 years the thing is so vivid,

that it is as ifit had happened yesterday.

Aii these chiidren gatherup in the night and what can they do...

except cry, cry, in the night. [ Crying ]

And, uh-

And it was completely useless.

All I want to say is that the people who cry in the night like this have a right to do so.

They don`t do it to be clever...

or they don`t do it to disturb the peace.

They do it because, uh, it helps them.

And sinceyou become very ugly when you yell, you know,

the parents bring a mirror and they say,

""Oh, don`tyell becauseyou become ugly.``

But they meet in the night because they cannot see each other`s ugliness.

You understand?. And still this- They feel each other`s warmth.

So they cry all night and nobody knows why.

[Louise`s Voice ] I overcame this trauma through a dream.

He was teiiing his joke and his eyes feii off on the dinner tabie...

and the catjumped on the tabie and gobbied up his two eyes.

I had achieved my revenge.

They are my hands,

as you can see by the size.

Ri ght. I t is his hands that are holding my hands, right.

Is that the one or this one?. No, that`s in that another one.

So we took the wrong one. [ Laughs ]

And his hands then-

Like this. Right.

My hands are over Louise`s hands. Right.

Louise`s hands are like this. So, my hands are like this. Right. So this is where it came from.

- Like this. - So it is really our hands.

[Amei] Whydoes it seem important that it beyourhands-yours andJerry`s?

Because- Because it means-

It shows how much I care about the whole thing.

It shows how much the emotion that this expresses is true.

It`s an emotion that has been lived and that is real. It`s not something made up.

I go backand, uh, I unwind the past.

Andyou can see bythe work there is a sequence to the work...

which is visibie in the aspect ofthe-

in the way the pieces iook.

And they go on and on and on iike that.

Everything is organized.

On and on and on.

Ex,cept that the anx,iety remains and the anx,iety makes me work more.

But the work is forpieasure...

because I feei better after having done a piece.

I feei stronger.

[ Peopie chattering ]

[ Frances Morris `s Voice ] My ex,perience with the towers happened over a year.

I began with seeing a maquette...

and moved to another maquette...

and another.

And then a subsequent encounter with the work was roiied-up pieces ofsteei.

[ Machinery Grinding ]

And the beginnings ofcurves.

I n a very, very cold, um, steelyard in Connecticut.

And my subsequent experience with the work was daily construction here.

[ Toois Banging]

[ Tooi Driiiing]

[ Chattering ]

[ Toois Banging]

Can you go a little forward?. [ Man ] You mean more down?

Yeah.Just iike that.

[ Tooi Driiiing]

[ Man ] Get me out! [ Men Laughing]

[ Frances`s Voice ] We finished these works about 1 0 minutes before the opening,

or 1 0 minutes before the press came in.

And there was an extraordinary lull, but there was nobody around.

The turbine hall was so quiet,

you could just hear the hum ofthe transformers.

[Transformers Humming]

This was the end ofan amazing project.

The institution was going to open within days.

It was aii finished. The towers were spectacuiar.

And I thought, ""Whiie nobody`s around, I`m gonna do it."`

I went up I Do.

And I went very, very siowiy and incredibiy seif-consciousiy.

And I think that`s one of the key things about these works-

right at the start they make you seif-conscious.

It`s about rupture, the middie one.

And it`s about travei, it`s about thejourney.

[ Door Bangi ng ]

[ Frances `s Voice ] It`s a very unyieiding and veryprison-iike ex,perience to come down that tower.

When you sit at the bottom ofthe tower andyou iook up...

at the view from the bottom ofthe weii,

there is a kind ofupward momentum, that there is something up there.

[ Door Banging ]

I then went up I Redo.

And at the top ofthat tower I became...

ex,traordinariiy absorbed in the mirrors,

in myseif.

Because I put my hand up, iike this,

and as I did i n the m i rror, another hand emerged here.

Absolutely extraordinary because Louise makes these double-handed arms.

Forme, the first encounters with Louise were reaiiy as a kind ofhistoric figure-

a ciassic, modern, 20th century artist.

And then at subsequent encounters with her...

were encounters with a contemporary artist.

And for me, I think she`s reaiiy the oniy figure in 20th century art...

that I see i n both these contexts.

I think as she has become physicaiiy oider,

and in a way more ambitious,

her work has become more universai.

[ Louise`s Voice ] The purpose ofthe pieces,

whatever they are and whatever date they are,

is to ex,press emotions.

Emotions for me are very bothersome...

because they are compieteiy inappropriate.

My emotions are inappropriate to my size.

My emotions are my demons.

I t is not the emotions themselves, it is the intensity of the emotions...

are much too much for me to handle.

And that is why I transfer them,

I transfer the energy into sculpture.

This applies to everything I do.

It has nothing to do with the craft.

It has nothing to do with the skills.

It has nothing to do with the how-to manage materials.

Materials are only materials, nothing more.

The materials are not the subject ofthe artist.

The subject ofthe artist is emotions...

and, uh- and ideas, both.

[Beiis Peaiing]

[ Women, computerized Voices ] So hoid me, Mom

Inyouriong arms

So hoid me, Mom

Inyouriong arms

Inyour automatic arms

Your eiectronic arms

In your arms

So hoid me, Mom

In your iong arms

Yourpetrochemicai arms

Your miiitary arms

In your eiectronic arms

[ Louise ] So, iet us have a-

Let`s have a iittie champagne.

We don`t deserve it, but we can stiii have it. [ Peopie Laughing ]

[ Louise Singing In French ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ Laughs ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[Amei ] Bravo! Bravo!

You don`t understand a word of it, no?. I didn`t, but it sounded great.

It is the, ""Oh-ho, you are so great!``

You know, it`s something you would tell your husband. Oh-ho! Oh-ho!

[ continues Singing In French ]

[Amei] Whose music is that? Mine!

That`s the only music I ever-

That`s it. It`s not bad.

[ Laughs ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ Whistiing ]

[ continues Singing In French ]

[ Fades ]