The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Louise Bourgeois · a monumental sculpture: a spider more than nine metres high, its body and abdomen carried on eight long, thin, jointed legs that come to points on the ground, and slung beneath the abdomen a mesh sac of white marble eggs · one work in several instances, all made in the artist’s lifetime and under her direction: the steel original of 1999 and the casts in bronze, stainless steel and marble from 2001, scored on the form they share at full scale · first shown in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern at the museum’s opening, May 2000 · the casts standing in public on four continents · not bound to a site; no instance replaces a lost one
Mode
Monumental public sculpture made intimate and autobiographical; the enlarged creature as a figure of the mother
Mythos
The spider as spinner and weaver, Arachne, and the great mother who shelters and devours; particularised by the title as one mother, a mender of tapestries
Phase
Made in 1999, when the artist was eighty-seven; the largest of a family of spiders begun in 1994; first shown in May 2000, cast in bronze from 2001
Presentation
Steel in the original; bronze, stainless steel and marble in the casts; legs ribbed and knuckled as if worked by hand; marble eggs in a mesh sac
Register
Dread joined to tenderness; shelter and threat in one structure
Scale
More than nine metres; the viewer beneath the body and within the legs, as a child beneath a mother; one creature, one encounter
Governing Proposition
A spider more than nine metres high stands on eight thin legs that touch the ground at points, and the viewer walks upright beneath it: under the body, within the span of the legs, below a sac of marble eggs held overhead and out of reach. The title is French for “Mummy”, and the work is dedicated to the artist’s mother, who repaired tapestries. The wager of the sculpture is that care and menace can be one figure, that the scale of the heroic monument can carry a private and maternal subject, and that standing beneath a creature can place an adult where a child stands before a mother.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
A spider stands more than nine metres high, taller than a house. Its body and abdomen are carried high on eight long, thin, jointed legs that come to points on the ground, and a person walks upright beneath it. Slung under the abdomen, inside a cage-like mesh, is a sac of white marble eggs. Louise Bourgeois made it in 1999, when she was eighty-seven. The title is French for “Mummy”, and in her own account the work is dedicated to her mother.
Bourgeois was born in Paris on 25 December 1911, and she died in New York on 31 May 2010. Her mother, Joséphine, ran the family’s tapestry-restoration workshop and died in 1932; when the spider was made she had been dead for nearly seventy years. The work’s subject is the relation of two, a mother and a child, carried by an animal at its most functional and held as an old woman’s memory. There is no city in it, no state, no history beyond one household, and no story beyond the two.
The original of 1999 is steel. Casts in bronze, with stainless steel and marble, followed from 2001, all made in Bourgeois’s lifetime and under her direction, fabricated and cast by others. The work is scored as one sculpture in these several instances, on the form they share at full scale: the steel original is the first instance and the one through which the work entered the world, and the casts are its standing presence. No instance replaces a lost one. The work is not bound to a site; it has travelled and stands in several settings, and none of them is part of it.
Movement II
Maman is the largest of a family of spiders Bourgeois made from 1994. Before it came smaller spiders, met at the height of the eye, the drypoint book Ode à ma mère of 1995 and the Cell (Spider) of 1997. The smaller spiders carry the same argument at other sizes, and they show what the size of this one does. At three metres one looks at a spider. At nine one is under a mother, beneath her and outside the sac.
In her own account the spider is a tribute to her mother, and the reading the title asks for holds: the spider that spins and repairs its web is the woman with a needle in a workshop of old tapestries. The mother’s power, in this figure, is her labour of repair. The craft and the creature answer each other, and the title turns the Mother of myth into this mother, one woman in one household. What the image gives without the title is the ambivalence, and it gives it strongly.
The spider is among the oldest figures of the mother and of fate: the spinner and weaver, Arachne the weaver, the great mother who shelters and devours. Nothing in the work alludes to these by ornament; the creature is the structure, and the viewer’s place beneath it is the child’s before the mother. The particular lives in the title and the eggs more than in the object, which shows a spider and not a person. Bourgeois made public the household of her childhood, her father’s betrayal among it, and her statements about her mother, her father and her childhood stand beside the work and steer much of what is written about it.
Movement III
Across a hall or a plaza the first sight is of a creature taller than a house standing on needle points. On the approach the legs separate and the body rises out of view. Beneath it, the body is overhead and the legs stand round like the ribs of a vault, and the viewer is inside the animal’s span, in an enclosure that can be entered and does not hold. The legs that shelter are the legs that cage. The sac is placed where the eye finds it only from beneath, the eggs pale behind the mesh and out of reach, and the viewer stands as the child outside the sac.
The legs are thin against the mass above them, and the body is carried so high on them that the whole seems to hover, and could fail; the protective body is also precarious. The legs are ribbed, knotted and wrought, as if each had been bent and worked by hand. The joints are knuckles, not hinges, the industrial means do not show, and the creature reads as made rather than manufactured. Take away the sac and the spider is only a spider; take away the height and it becomes an object to look at, not a body to stand under; take away legs and the enclosure opens and the figure limps.
The needle point where a leg meets the ground is the sharpest and most threatening thing in the work; the marble eggs are the smoothest and most vulnerable. They obey one law, a structure that holds something precious out of reach. The points keep the body aloft, the body keeps the sac aloft, the sac keeps the eggs. Menace and care are the same physics seen from outside and from inside. Everything is worked, the legs knuckled, the body ribbed, the mesh woven, and nothing is smooth but the eggs, which are what is protected.
Movement IV
In May 2000 Tate Modern opened in London, a museum made from a power station, and in its Turbine Hall, in the first of the Turbine Hall commissions, stood the steel spider with Bourgeois’s three steel towers, I Do, I Undo, I Redo. A giant spider stood at the opening of a great museum, made by a woman of eighty-seven. It was the work’s first showing, and through it the work entered the world.
The monumental public sculpture of the century had been abstract, steel, heroic or impersonal, from Calder’s stabiles to Serra. Beside it stood the enlarged figure or object made monumental, Oldenburg’s from the 1960s and Koons’s Puppy of 1992. Maman made the monument intimate, autobiographical and ambivalent: a mother as a predator, at a size that puts the viewer beneath her. The risk was spectacle; a giant spider in a public hall could read as a fairground effect, and its content as confession. The turn belongs to the oeuvre: the motif had been Bourgeois’s since 1994 and the confessional content for decades, and this is their largest statement.
It showed that a private and female subject, autobiography and maternal ambivalence, could stand at the scale of the heroic monument and remain monumental. It opened the Turbine Hall commissions, which made the single spectacular work in a vast hall an institution, and it became the emblem of Bourgeois’s late fame. What it redirected belongs largely to the oeuvre, the Cells, the confessional sculpture, her standing for younger artists; that later giant public figures descend from it, rather than from Oldenburg and Koons, is hard to show.
Movement V
From 2001 the spider was cast, and the casts stand permanently in public on four continents, in plazas and on riverbanks, made for the open air. It has been seen continuously since 2000, and it is one of the most seen sculptures of its decade. In no instance has anything been lost, replaced or refabricated. The steel original, thinner in its means than the bronzes, is the instance most exposed.
Multiplying her changes what she is. One mother stands in many cities, and a private figure has become a landmark that people photograph and meet at. The familiarity blunts the dread where she stands, and the first encounter beneath the body renews it. Fame is presence, not proof of permanence, and twenty-seven years is a short record. The surface carries no topical sign, and a spider and a mother are not fixed to 1999.
The readings so far: the mother, through Bourgeois’s own account; the father’s betrayal and the household of her childhood; the maternal as power and not only care; the devouring mother of psychoanalysis; the legs as Gothic ribs and the body as a roof; the spinning as tapestry and repair. The work keeps its two faces in every one of them. The artist’s own interpretation channels much of what is written, and much of the return is to the life rather than to the object, which once seen does not change on a second visit. Beneath the body the viewer still stands as a child stands, and the eggs are still overhead, out of reach.
Act III · The Twelve
Judged by subtraction. Take away the sac and its eggs and the spider is only a spider: the mother goes, and with her the title and the reason the creature holds itself so high. Take away the height and the viewer is no longer beneath it; it becomes an object to look at rather than a body to stand under. Take away legs and the enclosure opens and the figure limps: the eight make both the anatomy and the room. There is little ornament; the ribbed and knuckled surface of the legs is the one elaboration, and it carries the sense of a thing worked by hand. What holds the axis is substitution: smaller spiders made from 1994 carry the same argument at other sizes, and the exact height, the spread and the modelling of each leg are permitted rather than compelled.
Score: 8.3 / 10
What can be stated, and holds: care and menace are one figure. The creature that guards its eggs overhead is the creature a child fears; the legs that shelter are the legs that cage. Seen from beneath, the mother is vast, patient and not to be reached, and the eggs are out of the viewer’s reach too, so the viewer stands as the child outside the sac. With the title a second meaning holds: the mother’s power is her labour of repair, and the spider that spins and mends is the restorer of tapestries. These meanings are disclosed by image and scale as fully as words could disclose them. What holds the axis below the gate: the second depends on title and biography, and the image unaided gives the ambivalence, strongly, more than a condition articulated in its causes.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Elevation is real, and it is dread joined to tenderness. Its places: the first sight across a hall or a plaza, a creature taller than a house standing on needle points; the approach, as the legs separate and the body rises out of view; the moment beneath, the body overhead and the legs standing round like the ribs of a vault, the viewer inside the animal’s span; the sac seen from below, the eggs pale behind the mesh; the thinness of the legs against the mass above, which makes the whole seem to hover, and could fail. Height is high at the first encounter and beneath the body. Frequency is moderate: one encounter, renewed at each approach, and the work’s familiarity, a landmark people photograph and meet at, blunts the dread where it stands.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Built, not evoked. The whole form is the archetype: the spider as spinner and weaver of fate, as Arachne the weaver, as the great mother who shelters and devours. Nothing is alluded to by ornament; the creature is the structure, and the viewer’s place beneath it is the child’s before the mother. The particular is kept by the title and the eggs: not the Mother but this mother, a woman with a needle in a workshop of old tapestries, the craft the spider’s spinning answers. Load-bearing and particular, which is the top of the axis in kind. Held at the gate because the particular lives in the title and the biography more than in the object, which shows a spider and not a person, and because the archetype is one figure, not a structure of figures.
Score: 8.5 / 10
The inheritance is the monumental public sculpture of the twentieth century, abstract, steel, heroic or impersonal, from Calder’s stabiles to Serra; and beside it the enlarged figure or object made monumental, Oldenburg’s from the 1960s and Koons’s Puppy (1992). The departure: the monument made intimate, autobiographical and ambivalent, a mother as a predator, at a size that puts the viewer beneath her, by a woman of eighty-seven at the opening of a great museum. The stake was the risk of spectacle: a giant spider in a public hall could read as a fairground effect, and its content as confession. What holds the axis: the turn is the scaling of a motif made since 1994, the confessional content had been hers for decades, and the swerve belongs to the oeuvre, of which this is the largest statement.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Would a different form change what the work knows? Largely. The scale is the knowledge: at this size the viewer stands as a child stands to a mother, beneath her and outside the sac, and the smaller spiders, met at the eye, show the difference; at three metres one looks at a spider, at nine one is under a mother. The legs make an enclosure one can enter and not be held in, shelter and threat in one structure. The sac is placed where the eye finds it only from beneath, and out of reach. The points on which the legs stand make a great weight appear to hover, so the protective body is also precarious. Held below 9.0: the form is the creature’s own anatomy, scaled, and its knowledge is shared with the other large spiders; it is apt more than invented.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Evidence over promise: twenty-seven years of return, so this is partly forecast. The readings so far: the mother, through the artist’s own account; the father’s betrayal and the household of her childhood, which she made public; the feminist reading of the maternal as power and not only care; the psychoanalytic reading of the devouring mother; the architectural reading, the legs as Gothic ribs and the body as a roof; the craft reading, spinning as tapestry and repair. The work keeps its two faces in every one of them, which is depth. What holds the axis: the artist’s own interpretation is unusually dominant and channels the literature, much of the return is to the life rather than the object, and the form, once seen, does not change on a second visit as a painted surface or a site does.
Score: 8.1 / 10
On view since 2000, so force and reach are scored together. The intrinsic force: it showed that monumental public sculpture could carry autobiography and maternal ambivalence, a private and female subject at the scale of the heroic monument, and remain monumental. The discount: what it redirected belongs largely to the oeuvre, the Cells, the confessional sculpture, the artist’s standing for younger artists; and the descent of later giant public figures from it, rather than from Oldenburg and Koons, is hard to show. Fame is presence, and it is weighed here only as reach. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: wide in presence and narrower in redirection, it is the emblem of the artist’s late fame, it opened the Turbine Hall commissions, which made the single spectacular work in a vast hall an institution, and its casts made it one of the most seen sculptures of its decade.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Weighed on form, then presence, then fabric. Form: whole in every instance, nothing lost, replaced or refabricated; the surface carries no topical sign, and a spider and a mother are not fixed to 1999. Presence: the widest a sculpture of its decade has, casts standing permanently in public on four continents and seen continuously since 2000; that earns the tenth wide presence may earn and no more, for fame is not proof of permanence, and twenty-seven years is a short record. Fabric: bronze, stainless steel and marble, made for the open air and multiplied, the smallest risk; the steel original, thinner in its means, is the instance most exposed. No charge is laid; the short record alone holds the figure where it stands.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Read to the same anchors as every medium: command of steel and cast bronze at architectural scale. It shows in three things. Proportion: the body’s mass carried so high, on legs so thin, that it reads as hovering, which is the work’s precariousness and a structural achievement that could not be faked. Surface: the legs are ribbed, knotted and wrought, as if each had been bent and worked by hand, so the industrial means do not show and the creature reads as made rather than manufactured; the joints are knuckles, not hinges. Contrast: the smooth marble eggs in their mesh against the rough legs. The costs: it was fabricated and cast by others under her direction, so the command credited is of decisions more than of hand, and the range of means is one creature’s anatomy.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: the needle point on which a leg meets the ground, the sharpest and most threatening thing in the work, and the marble eggs in their sac, the smoothest and most vulnerable. They obey one law: a structure that holds something precious out of reach. The points keep the body aloft, the body keeps the sac aloft, the sac keeps the eggs; menace and care are the same physics seen from outside and from inside. The surface obeys it too: everything is worked, the legs knuckled, the body ribbed, the mesh woven, and nothing is smooth but the eggs, which are what is protected. Held for the size of the territory: one creature, one register of material, one encounter, coherent completely and narrow by choice.
Score: 8.5 / 10
The orders held: the family, the mother and the child, the work’s whole subject; labour, the mother’s craft of spinning and repair carried by the spider’s; the natural order, an animal at its most functional; the body, the viewer’s, small beneath it, and the creature’s; memory, an old woman’s of a mother dead for nearly seventy years; and myth, the weaver and the great mother. They are held in one structure, because the spider is all of them at once. What holds the axis lowest is what is absent: no city, no state, no history beyond one household, no sacred, no story beyond the relation of two. A single creature cannot hold a world, and does not try. The figure describes the form.
Score: 7.0 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.3 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Living Form at 8.7, then The Imperishable and The Made at 8.6, and The Archetypal Deep and The Inner Law at 8.5. A scale that is the knowledge, placing the viewer beneath the mother and outside the sac; a form whole in every instance and seen continuously in public on four continents; a hovering mass on thin, knuckled legs that reads as made rather than manufactured; the spider built as the whole archetype and particularised by its title; and one law, a structure that holds something precious out of reach, obeyed from the needle points to the marble eggs.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.0: the family, labour, the natural order, the body, memory and myth are held at once in one creature; there is no city, state or history beyond one household, no sacred and no story beyond the relation of two, and the figure describes the form. Below the rest, The Swerve and The Bottomless Well at 8.1, with The Unconcealment and Pressure on Tradition at 8.2: the turn is the scaling of a motif made since 1994; twenty-seven years of return are partly forecast, and much of it goes to the life; the image gives the ambivalence more than a condition stated in its causes; and what it redirected belongs largely to the oeuvre.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.3 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 8.7, The Made at 8.6, The Inner Law at 8.5, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 8.6 clears the bar of 8.5 and The Archetypal Deep meets it exactly at 8.5, but The Unconcealment and Pressure on Tradition at 8.2 fall short by three tenths and The Swerve at 8.1 by four. The Universal Minimum is met (no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.1, against 7.5) and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.0. The twelve sum to 99.2, an average of 8.267 that displays as 8.3, below the 9.0 the summit also requires; the placement in Tier IV is settled on the aggregate and on the gate alike.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of the object, of its making, first showing and later history, from documented accounts and photographs held in memory; the sculpture was not stood beneath for this reading, and no image or written source was consulted. The work scored is one sculpture in several instances, all made in the artist’s lifetime and under her direction: the steel original of 1999, the first instance and the one through which the work entered the world, and the casts in bronze, stainless steel and marble from 2001, the work’s standing presence. It is scored on the form they share at full scale; where the instances differ, in material, the finish of the legs and the eggs, the difference is weighed only for the making and for survival. No instance replaces a lost one, and none has been rebuilt. The work is not bound to a site; it has travelled, and no setting in which it stands is part of it. The other spiders made from 1994, the drypoint book Ode à ma mère (1995), the Cell (Spider) (1997), the towers I Do, I Undo, I Redo shown with it in 2000, the places where the casts stand, and the artist’s statements about her mother, her father and her childhood are context. No words are quoted; the artist’s account of the work as made for her mother is given in substance. Facts and figures that could not be verified are not given or are stated as open, among them the exact height, width and depth, the number of eggs, the number of casts and the collections that hold them, and the present state and keeping of the steel original.