Louise Bourgeois

Reviewing Louise Bourgeois' monumental 2007-2008 traveling retrospective during its stop at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The New York Times' Holland Cotter wrote, for Bourgeois, "art is not a job; it is a life. It is what you do when you get up in the morning, and what you continue to do all day, through headaches and phone calls, breakups and breakdowns, silences and celebrations. It is what you keep doing after dark, and when you can't sleep at night... She is an art-world presence, a personality and a loquacious one, ever ready to share her history." This volume, an absolute treasure put together by the French artist Makhi Xenakis, takes the reader back to Bourgeois' childhood haunts. It includes documentary and family photographs from the artist's youth, as well as reproductions of artworks that are traced to specific times and places during her life. Short texts accompany each image and Bourgeois' comments and explanations run throughout.