Visual Culture Database Form ARTE 344/544 Spring 2021

Provider: Eva Lord

VCDB #:
5
Big Idea/Subject:
Family
Major Theme:
Childhood fear
Medium/ Presentation:
Bronze, marble, and
stainless steel, sculpture
Visual Components:
Scale, texture, space, form,
movement, repetition
Category:
Fine Arts
Pop art
Pop culture
Non-art

Authorship: Louse Bourgeois

Title: Maman
Original Location: Long Museum, Shanghai
Description/Interpretation This piece is a massive bronze sculpture of a spider. I do
: not believe that this is any particular type of spider, it is
just one that Louise Bourgeois made from her own mind.
 Each leg has the same type of “boney” structure, but each
has its own size with unique arrangement of the same
texture. At the bottom of the body of the spider there is a
makeshift egg sack with marble inside. After reading
about this piece and about Bourgeois’s life, it is apparent
that this sculpture is in reference to her mother or
Maman. A spider is often seen as a thing to be feared,
regardless of its small scale. This sculpture slightly twists
that, making it a representation of how she was afraid of
her mother but felt protected because she could tower
over her (the egg sack) and make sure she was safe. The
dark twisted figure would give most viewers the chills, as
it did Bourgeois. But if they were to look deeper into the
meaning they would see how this spider made of bronze
and steel will never be knocked over, protecting what it
carries.
Use in Teaching (Lesson Lesson: Students will create a wire sculpture that revisits
Idea)/3-5 Guiding something “toxic” in their life. To learn about the
Questions: sculptural style of Louise Bourgeois, they will wrap their
wire sculptures in tin foil which they can then paint on to
emphasize the texture of their object.
The students will have a class discussion around the topic
how people/events/places may feel like something they
cannot live without but are hurting them at the same time.
This may seem like a very intense topic to cover at the
middle age, but with social media placing the concept of
“toxic” all over their lives, it seems as though it would be
an important topic to carefully pick apart in the
classroom.

Guiding Questions:
1. How does the texture of the spider’s legs
emphasize the theme of the sculpture?
2. Why did Louise Bourgeois make the sculpture at
such a large scale?
3. Why did Louise Bourgeois choose the figure of a
spider to represent her mother?

Image Source: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/10856