Cell (Three White Marble Spheres)

Cell (Three White Marble Spheres) offers an ambiguous environment of protection and imprisonment, freedom and surveillance. Here three marble spheres are enclosed in a box-like structure of rusted steel, mesh, and panes of glass, some broken. Two larger spheres both shelter and overshadow the smaller sphere between them, evoking interrelationships of a family that can be viewed as either protective or domineering. It is also unclear if the door to the cell is opening or closing. Does it suggest potential escape from this damaged and claustrophobic cube? Such uncertainty is characteristic of the artist Louise Bourgeois, allowing the viewers to supply their own narrative interpretation of the objects at hand. Throughout her long career, Bourgeois used unorthodox materials to suggest emotional and psychological states that stemmed from her own life experience. References to the human body and to the individual’s role in family and society were constants in her work. In her late 70s Bourgeois began to create an ambitious series of works called the Cells, large-scale environments that combine sculpture, architecture, and found objects, as seen here.