THE DEATH OF THE SHAYKHA
a eulogy for Louise Bourgeois
While I was drawing in my studio in the early hours of June 1 2010 with the radio on, the last item on the news stopped me in my tracks. It said that on the day before 31 May 2010 the great – and oldest – artist Louise Bourgeois, had departed life peacefully in her sleep from a heart attack. And before I knew it, the newsreader finished his paragraph by saying that Louise Bourgeois was an inspirational figure for feminism and feminist art.
I felt a bit upset for two reasons, firstly and mainly of course, the fact that Louise Bourgeois was dead, I would not draw for half an hour, or I didn’t want to. I felt personally that the death of Louise Bourgeois deserves that we all put down our pens and brushes and bow our heads for a few minutes.
The other thing that upset me slightly was that final statement about Louise Bourgeois and “Feminist” art and “feminism”. Louise Bourgeois herself refused to accept the label in her lifetime. As well, I felt that the statement somehow denied me (and other male artists) Louise Bourgeois’s influence. I also felt offended for Louise Bourgeois, when the BBC managed to reduce her 98 years of life and work into an “ism” that came into being so late in her lifetime.
What made the whole thing much more painful came later on the 10 pm news. In reporting the death, the BBC decided to choose Tracy Emin to mourn Louise Bourgeois, despite the existence of many female and male artists whose life and works could actually be related to that of Louise Bourgeois. Artists such as Paula Rego, or the sculptors Nicola Hicks or Cornelia Parker to name a few….
Yet out of all British artists they picked Tracy Emin. Now I personally know 3 things about Tracy Emin: I know what her bed looks like, I know the names of some people she slept with and I know that she’s one of the most artistically talentless individuals in this business, yet who has been pumped up by 21st century media branding.
Actually, I digress; I don’t want to talk about Tracy Emin.
To be honest with you I hate the notion of art associated with any type or sect. Terms like “feminist” art, “Black art”, gay art etc – what do they actually mean (and by the way, I write this as someone who is not “white”) ? To me art is art and there are only two kinds: art, and bullshit passed as art.
Art is one of those things where the identity of the artist and the identity of the audience really is totally irrelevant. Do we really when we look at a Bacon or a Michelangelo, think “How gay or straight is that art work?” Even though sure, we know that both artists were gay.
The power of artists such as Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, James Brown and Stevie Wonder is that they made people from different colours dance together in the same room, defying the social segregation that existed at the time. But it was their work that did it; it was powerful enough to move people.
But enough of that; I really want to talk about Louise Bourgeois. On the night Louise Bourgeois died, I found myself jumping to Google images and typing “ Louise Bourgeois”. I found enormous numbers of pictures ranging from a very young Louise Bourgeois in her early years of studying, copying a classical Graeco-Roman head, right through to portraits of Louise Bourgeois the shaykha, the Witch-In-Chief, the woman with the scary eyes that only someone like Picasso had. Eyes that say “I know it all; I’ve seen it all; I’ve done it all. And you will never know what I know, unless you work as much as I’ve worked, and live as long as I’ve lived.” I did a right click and saved this picture as my desktop background.
– continued in Part 2 below
