Tag: house

Susan Frazier, Aprons in The Kitchen, Womanhouse exhibition, 1972

Come in, east…please put on the apron strings and experience the heart of the home with me.

The outside is no longer with you, you are now embraced by my nurturing pink womb, giving life—sustaining milk from my breasts.  The umbilical cord has been cut through, and you must hold on to the apron strings real tight or you might (gasp)…have to rely on yourself…tisk, tisk!

I must work harder to sustain life for you, to meet your biological needs, feed your habits with habits…I am a habit to you!  I am not a habit!  Release me, let me go, you don’t know me, you don’t own me.  I am a human being, not just a source of cheap labor for lazy people.

I want to undo these apron strings, to see what the rest of the world is doing, to see if I can help…to see myself once again.  I want to travel, to see wonders I only dream of daily…to see wonders I only dream of daily, right here in the heart of the home façade.

-Susan Frazier

Femme Maison

State/Variant:Version 1 of 2, only state

Date:1947

This composition appeared first in an ink on linen work of 1946-47, and was then used for an exhibition brochure for “Louise Bourgeois: Paintings” on view at Norlyst Gallery, New York from 10/28-11/8/1947. The composition was also reproduced on the cover of Lucy Lippard, “From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women’s Art,” (New York: Dutton, 1976); and for an exhibition poster for “‘Louise Bourgeois Sculpture/The Prints of Louise Bourgeois” at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, on view 10/15-12/31/1995.

Artist’s Remarks:“I consider this perfect… it brings the personal together with the environment… it is a symbiosis of one with the universe… it is a kind of acceptance.” The figure “is serene… it doesn’t mind.” But Bourgeois added, “There is a sexual loneliness. She is dignified, but she is alone… she has no companion. The little hand is trying to call for help. She is not sexual at all. Her head does not know that she is naked. She has no hair or bosom… they are occupied by work.” (Quote cited in Wye, Deborah and Carol Smith. “The Prints of Louise Bourgeois.” New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994, p. 148.