On the eve of launching regular screenings of the documentary Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine (2008), Amei Wallach, the film's co-director and co-producer, will give a talk about her work with Bourgeois during filming, describing backstage moments which reveal the inner world of the artist.
On the eve of launching regular screenings of the documentary Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine (2008), Amei Wallach, the film's co-director and co-producer, will give a talk about her work with Bourgeois during filming, describing backstage moments which reveal the inner world of the artist.
The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine is the outcome of a long standing collaboration between Wallach, Ken Kobland (cinematographer and editor) and Marion Cajori (co-director, 1950–2006). Conceived as a story of Bourgeois’s exhibition for the 1993 Venice Biennale, it turned into a much larger project with time. The resulting piece combines archival material with the footage filmed in the artist’s New York studio and home during the 1990s and 2000s. The narration evolves around multiple interviews of Bourgeois and the people close to her, edited into the detailed shots of her works. Throughout the film, the camera picks out certain nuances, like her hands or smile. Under Kobland’s specific editing manner, this portrait of Louise Bourgeois appears more of an audiovisual collage than a traditional biopic. The aura is further conveyed by the soundtrack featuring Mahler, Puccini and Laurie Anderson among others.