On big bellies, tits, impotence, and male hysteria: Louise Bourgeois and Alina Szapocznikow

Text by Senior Curator Exhibitions and Collections Andrea Kroksnes

Louise Bourgeois and Alina Szapocznikow met in 1969 in Carrara, Italy, where they were both working at the marble quarries. The small Tuscan town settled between the impressive mountains of white marble and the summer-crowded beach resorts of the Ligurian Sea, like renowned Viareggio, was a fashionable meeting place for contemporary artists from around the world. Bourgeois had come on the advice of her friend, the American sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, and worked at various quarries and foundries in Carrara and nearby Pietrasanta for several weeks at a time from 1967 until 1971. In this intimate and nourishing setting far away from home, it was easy to make acquaintances and exchange ideas and information. The list of artists she met ranges from the younger Polish artist Szapocznikow, the Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and the well-established English sculptor Henry Moore, whose studio she rented after he left. In letters to her husband Robert Goldwater, she described these inspirational interactions. At the same time, she was also aware that her colleagues might get inspired by her work, and she expressed an almost neurotic fear of being copied.

A new friendship

When she met Alina Szapocznikow, the two artists immediately became close. Both were still little-known figures in the international art world and probably shared the experience of struggling as female artists in a male-dominated art world. Szapocznikow had gained some attention when she impressed the jury of the Copley Foundation, consisting of Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, and Max Ernst, among others, and won their prize in 1966. Bourgeois was not recognized internationally at the time, despite several solo exhibitions in New York and her participation in the now famous exhibition Eccentric Abstraction curated by American art historian Lucy Lippard in 1966 at New York’s Fischbach Gallery.

A possible rivalry

Bourgeois wrote home about one of their visits together: “This afternoon… Alina has invited me... to show me her catalogues and pictures. It is body parts immersed in moss like Gallo style + Marisol but better... talking freely she told me […] that she had spent 5 years between 13 and 18 at the Auschwitz camp.”

Only a few days later, the intimate connection turned into rivalry and suspicious manoeuvring on Bourgeois’s part.

"I believe that [Alina’s] energy and ambition are unsurpassed to the point of being obsessive – Well I didn’t show my roll construction to [her] because she could make a more interesting use of it!?!?"

Married to one of the foremost scholars of modern art, and having studied art history extensively herself, Bourgeois was well-aware of theories of modern and avantgarde art and its absolute mandate for newness and originality. “What modern art means is that you have to keep finding new ways to express yourself, to express the problems, that there are no settled ways, no fixed approach.”

Art reunites

In spite of Bourgeois’s caution, the fact that Szapocznikow and Bourgeois shared such intimate conversations early on in their friendship could indicate that the two women were close and trusted each other. It is also a fact that Bourgeois was too interested in Szapocznikow and their inspiring artistic exchange to end their friendship. Their connection was mutually felt, and they were in touch again after their encounter in Carrara when both were in Paris