"Woman's Art Journal" (Fall/Winter 2009)

Today was the last day of class (Art Since 1945), and although I am thinking about and preparing for the final, I'm also thinking about the art history class I will be taking next semester, Gender and Art, so today I'm going to write about the Fall/Winter 2009 issue of Woman's Art Journal.

It seems that some of the art shown and written about in this magazine is not necessarily contemporary, such as the cover art, which is Paula Modersohn-Becker's Self-Portrait, Age 30, 6th Wedding Day (1906). However, the magazine also contains a great deal of recent reviews, so I'm going to focus on that part of the issue. In fact, there's a review of Louise Bourgeois's latest exhibition catalogue which looks interesting. I remember Louise Bourgeois being mentioned in class at some point this semester, however, I cannot seem to find her listed on any of our class handouts. Maybe my memory will be jogged while writing this entry and I will remember when and in what context we studied Bourgeois this semester. Another thing I remember being mentioned in class is Linda Nochlin's essay entitled "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" (1971), which happens to be referenced in this review.

Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1997

What I'm learning so far is that this catalogue is a traveling compendium, as well as a retrospective, but does not follow the typical chronological format of a retrospective. Instead it focuses on the people, places, and subjects that have served as influences on and inspirations for Bourgeois's life and art. Also, the title of the catalogue is taken from her 1999-2000 mixed-media installation, "I Do, I Undo, I Redo", which is very fitting for a retrospective that examines how and why certain subjects have become recurring themes in differing forms throughout her career.

In terms of the non-chronological layout of the catalogue, it is set up as a glossary with alphabetically-arranged entries ranging from names of family members and friends to titles of specific works to the themes in Bourgeois's life and art, such as "Abandonment" and "Abstraction." However, the author of this review says that this format, while innovative, tends to be too verbose in terms of biography, and thus works to its detriment and complicates the work itself. For example, because biography has the tendency to "heroicize the male artist-genius", the use of biography with female artists "often results in the reduction of their work to a mere visualization of personal life and positions them as exceptions to the rule in a patriarchal system." Therefore, Rachel Epp Buller, the author of this review, states that the authors who wrote the biography for this catalogue are reducing Bourgeois's work by assuming that it is merely the translation of her personal life into visual form. According to Linda Nochlin, the author of "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" (1971), "art is almost never that [the translation of personal life into visual terms], great art never is."

However, Buller recognizes that this is not entirely the fault of the authors. In fact, Bourgeois herself stated that her work "can be traced in inspiration to her formative years, and particularly to the perceived double betrayal in the open affair of Bourgeois's father and nanny." One must also consider Bourgeois's spider theme and its relation to her mother, a weaver, as seen in Maman (1999). Thus, it appears that through her art, Bourgeois leads to the viewer back to her biography, so it is important to find a balance between seeing her biography as a way of understanding the influences on her art, but not relying too heavily on it to the point of reducing her art and its meaning. Also, although it is important to recognize the role of biography usage in an artist's retrospective, one must also consider Bourgeois's theme of doing, undoing, and redoing, such that none of Bourgeois's works ever stand for one single thing.

Louise Bourgeois, Maman, 1999

Buller's review goes on to cite the opinions of various writers and the extent to which they use Bourgeois's biography when writing about her art and its meaning. (Buller even happens to mention the Donald Kuspit article that we read for class, which reminds me when we studied Bourgeois this semester!) And Buller then concludes by saying that although the catalogue is too heavy on the biographical side, it is also "a feat of scholarship" that provides many more opportunities for the continuous discussion and analysis of Bourgeois's art.

Buller, Rachel Epp. "Louise Bourgeois." Woman's Art Journal 30 (2009): 54-55.