As you make your way towards the Art Gallery of New South Wales, you will come across the giant sinewy bronze legs of the artist’s monumental sculpture Maman (“mum” in French) looming near the entrance.
As large to us as humans appear to spiders, Maman borrows the form of a daddy longlegs, but through its title switches both parent and gender. The artist replaces our fear of spiders with the love and protection associated with motherhood.
Despite a life and career mostly spent in New York City, where she moved in 1938 and remained until her death in 2010, the artist, born and educated in France, insisted on her “right to defend her Frenglish”. Titles of her works and her extensive body of writings move seamlessly from her native tongue to English to a deeply personal intermixing of both languages.
London’s Tate acquired the original Maman in 2008, but six other versions also exist. One now stands in the Domain, marking the arrival of Louise Bourgeois in Sydney and the opening of the first large scale show in the new Sydney Modern.
First opened to the public just over a year ago, the Sydney Modern promised “a 21st-century gallery providing one of the world’s great art museum experiences”. This exhibition matches this ambition with a deeply thoughtful and sensuous show.
