Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Spider Art

I can't help but think that my garden would be the talk of the town with THIS kind of garden sculture on the front lawn....

From a short article on Parisian artist Louise Bourgeois :




According to the artist, the spider is a feminine hero figure.
Bourgeois created the spider sculptures to honor her mother, who was her best friend and, like a spider, was deliberate, soothing, and patient.
Spiders also create webs which refer to Bourgeois’s early work with tapestries—her parents owned a tapestry restoration business—so the web is a metaphor for connection-making......
...While the spider’s body is above your head, (it is over 11 feet tall) you may examine its legs which are smooth bronze, yet with many different bumps and ridges to create the effect of a natural shape. Each leg is different. Here our giant spider is positioned to suggest that she is walking up the lawn to attend to her baby spider which is attached to the Museum’s facade....
Isn't that lovely? I've never heard of spiders described as "deliberate, soothing, and patient" before.
The article excerpt from above describes the sculpture in the upper left photo on this post. The other photo shows another two of Bourgeois's spider sculptures, these ones thirty feet tall and located in the garden of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
These scultures are from a series of six sculptures, some of them selling for several million dollars and one of them gracing the outside of the National Gallery in Ottawa.
One of the bronze arachnids is called Maman, after her own mother. And I'm glad she meant it in a nice way. :)
As some of you may know from my moniker (and some of you can confirm from knowing me), I have become fond of spiders both in actuality and in symbolism. But even though, I like them I don't collect spider things, persay.
Well, okay, I DO have one spider knick-knack. It actually reminds me a little of one of Louise Bourgeois's sculptures. Only it is only two inches high (and only cost me a dollar). And it's lying on its back on my living -room floor at the moment playing dead because my cat thought it might be interesting to eat.
But it wasn't.


9 comments:

Tai said...

I've got a mama spider depositing her egg sacs all over my house at the moment.
Not sure how soothed I feel about that fact.
:)

Tai said...

BUT, those are interesting sculptures. I think I would like to see them in real life.

kimber said...

Lovely sculptures -- I think one is a life-sized replica of the massive arachnid which scared my dog last night. I like spiders, but soothing? No.

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

The sculptures are great, but I have to admit they make me hyperventilate just a bit. If I wake up at 2 a.m. with nightmares, I'm calling you.

Bella said...

Those really aren't half bad.

Did I just say that?

Ian Lidster said...

Fabulous sculpture. As I'm an arachnophile, I'd love one of those. I think you should get yourself a welding outfit and make one of your own.

Miss B said...

You should check out Manon that lives outside the doors of the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa...she's the biggest spider I have ever seen!

Mz.Elle said...

How COOL are those!?
I'd love something like that in my yard.
I'm lucky to have a zillion spiders living in m house. Some are big,some are SUPER big,some are average and some are teeny tiny. They seem to like my knitting for some reason..

Pol* said...

I welcome them now. I used to be timid with spiders, then I was tolerant, not I see them and say "Hey there spidey? Any luck catching dinner today?" As a result of my affectionate relationship with the 8-legged wonders of nature, the neighbours call on me to catch the big ones in their basements... I am getting good at catching them without hurting them, then I let them out outside.