Art historian Olesya Turkina will talk about a key image for Louise Bourgeois’ works – the spiral, the metaphor for uncertainty and ambiguity—for centripetal and centrifugal forces representing the order and chaos in our universe. At the same time, the recurrent visual element of a diagonal paired with a spiral in Bourgeois' work is strangely reminiscent of Vladimir Tatlin's famous, unrealized project Monument to the Third International.
A key image in the artist's work, for Louise Bourgeois the spiral is a metaphor for uncertainty and ambiguity—for centripetal and centrifugal forces representing the order and chaos in our universe. At the same time, the recurrent visual element of a diagonal paired with a spiral in Bourgeois' work is strangely reminiscent of Vladimir Tatlin's famous, unrealized project Monument to the Third International, also known as Tatlin's Tower, now a major symbol of Modernism in Russia. In the 20th century, the spiral shape was used in mechanics, appearing in the turbine, the drill, and the screw. Industrialization brought Archimedes' Screw, a device for lifting water, back to life. Despite being familiar with the artist's works and travelling to Moscow in 1932 and 1934, Louise Bourgeois never met Vladimir Tatlin, and her sculptures are fundamentally very different from the grand design created by the Soviet painter and architect.