“A woman has no peace as an artist until she proves over and over that she won’t be eliminated,” Louise Bourgeois once said. On Monday, this plane of existence eliminated Bourgeois at the still-creative age of 98, but she will continue to exist as an influential artist setting a standard for feminism in art and educating those dark corners of culture that continue to ignore the toll that a male-dominated art world takes on us all. “To convince others, you have to convince yourself,” Bourgeois told a friend in 1939, “and a conciliatory or even an unduly understanding attitude—in that it is inevitably superficial—is not helpful to creativity.” Bourgeois convinced anyone who took the time to look at and think about her art that she was a force of nature to be reckoned with. The “kiss” of this “spider woman” may have been venomous in its uncompromising edginess, but it was also indelibly memorable. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Kiss of the Spider Woman."
[Image: Maman (from 1999).]
