1.
"All the women in my house used needles. I've always had a fascination with the needle, the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It's a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive, it's not a pin.
Rocking. Passing time. Valuing time.
Or, as the Three Fates would have it: she who cards, she who spins, she who stitches - when the thread breaks, the story's over.
My mother would sit out in the sun and repair a tapestry or a petit point. She really loved it. This sense of reparations is very deep within me. I break everything I touch because I am violent. I destroy my friendships, my love, my children. People would not generally suspect it, by the cruelty is there in the work. I break things because I am afraid and I spend my time repairing. I am a sadist because I am afraid.
If you're frightened by needles, pointed objects and knives, then your sensitivity will be stunted."
2.
"The mirror means that you have to come to an agreement with your own reflection. You have to love what you see. Concave and convex mirrors make it possibly to play with and accept deformations."
3.
"Red is the colour of blood
Red is the colour of pain
Red is the colour of violence
Red is the colour of danger
Red is the colour of shame
Red is the colour of jealousy
Red is the colour of grudges
Red is the colour of blame"
4.
"The couple copulating is seen through the eyes of a young girl. Are they fighting? Are they enjoying themselves? Is one killing the other? It refers to the age when I could no understand what they were doing, what they saw in each other, and what they were pursuing in each other. It is the question of an arrested traumatic experience. The prosthesis refers to the people who are handicapped. They would like to love but cannot succeed. Everything they attempt, they fail. I am afraid that they fail even in making love. And yet they try. Black is sad. The colour of mourning. The headless figures are wishful thinking on my part. Black is the colour of resented authority... I am an existential maker. Unconscious guilt makes you cruel.
The physiological problems explored in my works are those of a young girl. My traumas happened long before I was married. They happened in my teens, and I go back to that period. There is a fatal attraction for men who are married. This becomes a very dangerous situation. If you have low self-esteem you compare yourself to girls, and you are jealous of girls who have made it, who have got married. The consequences are that this girl L..., turns around couples, like a sick dog. She sees a couple and she has a fatal attraction no toward one or the other, but to the phenomenon of copulation. She is haunted by that, and she turns around them with curious eyes, not envious eyes but curious and inquisitive eyes. What are they doing? Why does he stay with her? I am exasperated by the vision of the copulating couple, and it makes me so furious, it upsets me so much, that I chop their heads. This is it. When a personis under such anxiety, I turn violent. I cut the heads off everybody... The sewing is a defence. I am so afraid of things I might do. The defence is to do the opposite of what you want to do. I would never separate a couple."
5.
"Hold my bones."
6.
"I have been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful."
7.
"If I am in a positive mood, I'm interested in joining. If I'm in a negative mood, I will cut things."
8.
"My mother was a restorer, she repaired broken things. I don't do that. I cannot go the straight line. I must destroy, rebuild, destroy again. My rhythm is not the same... I go from one extreme to the other."
9.
"I have nothing
nothing to say
nothing to get excited about
nothing to explain
nothing to prove
nothing to ask for
nothing to tell
nothing to show
nothing to hide
nothing to plan for
nothing to keep
nothing to anticipate
nothing to lose
nothing to criticize
nothing to collect
nothing to remember
nothing to want
nothing to apprehend
nothing to expect
so
nothing to fear
so
nothing to regret."
Louise Bourgeois
