Abstract

In recent years, artist Louise Bourgeois has begun incorporating her garments, and those of friends and family, as well as household textiles into her artworks. Anchored in poststructuralist thought, this thesis, written from a feminist perspective, examines Bourgeois's material use as the production of her subjectivity, materialized. Deconstructing existing presuppositions of the essentiality of subjectivity, Bourgeois's latest fabric is explored as the metaphoric ocillatory movement between self and other, mirroring the process of the subject in the making. Based on the premise that the work of art is not a reflection of the artist's experience but the site of experience itself, Bourgeois's material is examined as the site of the process and perpetual transformation of her subject position. Situating the significance of Bourgeois's works outside of the restrictive interpretive framework of the biographical details of her life, this thesis instead situates the meaning of her works within the dialogistic encounter between viewer and artwork. In exploring Bourgeois's subjectivity in relation to her latest material, her age is also considered, for she has reached the extreme old age of ninety-seven. The issue of ageism is therefore also considered in order to better understand this artist and the production of her work and self.