Spider, Mom

Louise Bourgeois’ Maman* in front of the Tate Modern (London) was a celebrity in its own right.

The ‘message’ though seems too simple and too complex for superficial stardom: Sheltering a sac of eggs under her abdomen, the giant spider is meant to symbolise Bourgeois’ mother.

“My best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, neat and useful as a [spider].”

As a work of art, the sculpture begs to be mugged – to take a picture is virtually unavoidable, even if one has no clue what this is about. The outsized spider in a public place is, at first sight, too many things at once – a foreign body, a point of interest, a source of irritation?.

In any case, it dominates. The spider’s visual power and its subliminal aloofness wow and perplex the viewer. Here I wonder whether or not the subject matter is the same as photographs of it, “…a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”**

*Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010): MAMAN, 1999 (Bronze, Stainless Steel and Marble)
** Diane Arbus, US photographer (1923-1971)