#ExhibitionsWeLove

In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, Public Art Fund's staff members are sharing some of their most beloved exhibitions from our archives:

Louise Bourgeois, Maman and Spiders, 2000

It’s strange that I selected Louis Bourgeois’ Maman and Spiders as one of my very favorite projects that Public Art Fund has presented, as I’m frightened of spiders. But what sounds like a terrifying idea—three monumental bronze spiders sited in a public plaza—has become, in the artist’s capable and sensitive hands, both a terribly awe-inspiring and touchingly vulnerable image. She brings together the predator and caregiver at a grand scale; Maman, on her spindly legs in the shadow of the imposing buildings of Midtown Manhattan, shepherds her two young and protects the marble eggs that hang beneath her body in a caged metal sac. Even the title of the largest spider, Maman, sounds, to my American ears, more tenderly said aloud in French than in its English translation, “mother”. What a beautiful homage by one of the great artists of our time.

-Kellie, Communications Director