By layering latex over plaster, Bourgeois achieved a fleshy, tactile texture in this hanging sculpture. While it most obviously represents a phallus, the work can also be seen as a female torso, as the title suggests; in this reading, the two round forms are the tops of two legs, attaching to their hip joints. This eliding of genders creates ambiguity, as do the work’s dual qualities of erect potency and fragile vulnerability. "From a sexual point of view," Bourgeois said, "I consider the masculine attributes to be very delicate."
Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, March 14–July 9, 2012.
Gallery label from From the Collection: 1960-69 , March 26, 2016 - March 12, 2017.
"Everything I loved had the shape of people around me—the shape of my husband, the shape of the children," Bourgeois said. "So when I wanted to represent something I love, I obviously represented a little penis." The title of the work, however, lends it ambiguity. In the 1960s Bourgeois began constructing hanging sculptures and using a variety of materialshere plaster and latexto create organic, fleshy sculptures that recall the human body.
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Louise Bourgeois
American, born France. 1911–2010 3040 works onlineBorn in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois was raised by parents who ran a tapestry restoration business. A gifted student, she also helped out in the workshop by drawing missing elements in the scenes depicted on the tapestries.
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