Louise Bourgeois

Fillette (Sweeter Version)

1968–99, cast 2001

© The Easton Foundation

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Not on display

Artist
Louise Bourgeois 1911–2010
Medium
Latex over plaster
Dimensions
Object: 570 (+ 133 mm hanging ring) x 286 × 170 mm

Collection
Lent from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection 2005
On long term loan
Reference
L02885

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  1. The title of this phallic sculpture means ‘little girl’, an ironic and unsettling disconnect between word and object. Bourgeois has talked about this work in relation to her experiences as a wife and a mother to three boys. This led her to see masculinity as far more vulnerable than she had imagined. ‘From a sexual point of view I consider the masculine attributes to be extremely delicate’, she explained. ‘They’re objects that the woman, myself, must protect.’ The photographer Robert Mapplethorpe famously portrayed Bourgeois with a version of this work tucked playfully under her arm.

Gallery label, August 2020

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