The contradictions of Louise Bourgeois

On flickr is a wonderful photo of Children on the sculpture Crouching Spider by the great artist, Louise Bourgeois. (It’s part of a fine photostream).

What I love about this photo is that while the sculpture is almost monstrous by itself, with children hanging from it, it becomes something like a jungle gym. It transforms from a thing of horror to a thing of play and joy.

Reading some interview of Bourgeois, the reason for her fondness for spiders comes through. And yet although she is fond of them, she sometimes portrays them in a way that seems to want to play on our fears of them. It’s as if she wants us to think about them positively and negatively at the same time.

I also recalled a quote from her complaining about having children because of how it prevented her from doing her art. But in the interviews I found on the Web, the essays and interviews talk about her fondness of her children.

I wonder what she would have thought of this photograph. I think she would have liked it.