Maman 1999
Collection of the artist.
Coutesy of Cheim & Read, New YorkThe artist & Jay Jopling (London)
Until 26 November 2000
Each year for the next five years, Unilever sponsorship will enable Tate Modern to commission a large-scale work for the Gallery's 500ft long x 100ft high Turbine Hall.
The inaugural work is by the French-born American sculptor Louise Bourgeois who is regarded as one of the most important artists working today. This project is Bourgeois' most ambitious to date and will be on display until 26 November 2000.
Three large steel towers, about 30 feet high, dominate the east end of the Turbine Hall. Each tower supports a platform on which two chairs are surrounded by a series of large swivel mirrors. The mirrors with their reflective surfaces create an intense space for contemplation and reflection.
Visitors are able to mount spiral staircases on the towers to experience the space of the platform and the Turbine Hall. Bourgeois imagines that the platforms will become the stage for significant conversations and human confrontations. Adjacent to the towers and straddling the bridge of the Turbine Hall is an enormous 35 feet high spider by Bourgeois, the largest she has made.
Born in 1911 in Paris, she studied under Léger, before moving to New York in 1938. A contemporary and colleague of the Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists Louise Bourgeois' own work has always been at the forefront of new developments in art. Obsessed by memories of her own childhood in France her work has always been deeply autobiographical, and in many different media (painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, performance) she has explored themes of identity, sex, love, alienation and death.