Abstract: Manifest as the trauma of birth by being ejected from the womb, abandonment spread like grief and anxiety throughout Louise Bourgeois’s life (1911–2010). She transformed this anxiety into works of art, for which words are inadequate since the origin is preverbal and therefore unrepresented. She uses a capacity for figurability , creating objects that give shape to emotions and fantasies that have not been conceived or represented but registered on a primordial unconscious level. This capacity is possible through a state, not of regression, but regredience , a creative transformational process, which, as a “loom of the psyche,” is constantly weaving threads and ideas together that form links to ahistorical unrep-resented trauma for the work of figurability. I seek to give meaning to three of Bourgeois’s sculptures here, Fée couturière (1963), Le Regard (1966), and Portrait (1963), by suggesting that they bring shape to and illuminate the trauma of birth, laying to rest, at least temporarily, the ghosts that haunt the artist.

Britt-Marie Schiller

American imago

Founded in 1939 by Sigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs, AMERICAN IMAGO is the preeminent scholarly journal of psychoanalysis. Appearing quarterly, AMERICAN IMAGO publishes innovative articles on the history and theory of psychoanalysis as well as on the reciprocal relations between psychoanalysis and the broad range of disciplines that constitute the human sciences. Since 2001, the journal has been edited by Peter L. Rudnytsky, who has made each issue a "special issue" and introduced a topical book review section, with a guest editor for every Fall issue.

Founded in 1939 by Sigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs, American Imago is the leading scholarly journal in the field of psychoanalysis. Published quarterly, American Imago features innovative articles on the history and theory of psychoanalysis, as well as studies on the reciprocal relationships between psychoanalysis and the wide range of disciplines that make up the human sciences. Since 2001, the journal has been edited by Peter L. Rudnytsky, who has designated each issue as a 'special issue' and introduced a topical book review section, with a guest editor for every Fall issue.

《American Imago》创刊于1939年，由西格蒙德·弗洛伊德和汉斯·萨克斯共同创办，是精神分析领域最重要的学术期刊。该期刊每季度出版，发表关于精神分析历史和理论的创新文章，以及精神分析与人文学科广泛领域之间相互关系的研究。自2001年以来，彼得·L·鲁德尼茨基担任主编，他将每期设定为“特刊”，并引入了专题书评部分，每个秋季期刊都有特邀编辑。

Category	Quartile
社会学	4
社会学, 人文科学	3

Figurability in the Art of Louise Bourgeois

ivySCI AI Smartly Parses PDF, Answers Researchers' Questions, and Helps You Understand Papers in Seconds

Journal Info