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Louis Bourgeois died on Monday. She was an artist who came to greater public fame in her 70s with her provocative work and her giant spiders. She was a Chelsea neighbor who I never knowingly saw on the street but who I always was strangely aware of. I found out about her passing through Joanne Mattera's post which is here. She has had a long life, a full career, and a loving family who I have met. Not knowing her and to be blunt, being the son of an artist who not long ago had passed away, I will miss the idea of her walled off in her brownstone in Chelsea. She was an enigma who for me had come out of no where in my youth. A spider who had latched onto my shoulder and someone who I had reflected on as I think of my own personal history. I knew who she was but not her implication as a person and artist. Draw your own conclusion. Holland Cotter has good obit here.
Yeah, she's someone I would have liked to have met. If I could name a better sculptor alive during the last ten years or so I can't think of who they would be. Who else had the kind of non-discursive, visceral connection to the materials she had. I feel like I saw a show of her new work just a year of so ago (I think I even wrote about it). At 98 I guess you can't call her death unexpected, but there was something kind of superhuman about her work and her energy that made you feel like she was going to live forever.
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