AllMovie

Born in 1911, sculptor Louise Bourgeois has been a major figure in contemporary American art since the early '60s, having earned an international reputation for her abstract pieces that embrace the appetites of human sexuality and the emotional dynamics of youth in a rich variety of ways. Filmmakers Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach offer an intriguing look at Bourgeois, her art, and her working methods in the documentary Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine. Active and alert in her mid-nineties, Bourgeois discusses how her life history impacts her work, her relationship with her family, the techniques she uses to create her sculptures, and how the emotional outlet of her art has helped her survive. The New York premiere of Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine was scheduled to coincide with the opening of a major retrospective of Bourgeois' work at the city's Guggenheim Museum; it was the last film from co-director Marion Cajori, who died in the summer of 2006 before it was completed.