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Maman (sculpture)

Maman (1999) is a bronze, stainless steel, and marble sculpture in several locations by the artist Louise Bourgeois. The sculpture, which depicts a spider, is among the world's largest, measuring over 30 ft high and over 33 ft wide (9.27 x 8.91 x 10.24 metres). It includes a sac containing 32 marble eggs and its abdomen and thorax are made of rubbed bronze.

The title is the familiar French word for Mother (akin to Mummy or Mommy). The sculpture was created in 1999 by Bourgeois as a part of her inaugural commission of The Unilever Series (2000), in the Turbine Hall at London's Tate Modern. This original was created in steel, with an edition of six subsequent castings in bronze.

Bourgeois chose the Modern Art Foundry to cast the sculpture because of its reputation and work.

Philosophy and meaning

The sculpture picks up the theme of the arachnid that Bourgeois had first contemplated in a small ink-and-charcoal drawing in 1947, continuing with her 1996 sculpture Spider. It alludes to the strength of Bourgeois' mother with metaphors of spinning, weaving, nurture and protection. Her mother, Josephine, repaired tapestries in her father's textile restoration workshop in Paris. When Bourgeois was twenty-one, she lost her mother to an unknown illness. A few days after her mother's death, in front of her father (who did not seem to take his daughter's despair seriously), Louise threw herself into the Bièvre River; he swam to her rescue.

Permanent locations

Temporary locations

Tours and featured exhibitions of Maman include:

See also

Gallery

References

External links