Fillette , her bronze phallic fantasy featured in a famous photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe, has many faces from a towering, roofed dwelling to the ultimate erection to a sort of enfant terrible. In the photo, Bourgeois holds Fillette under her arm in a motherly and encouraging way, with an attitude of utmost familiarity, creating a masculine-feminine symbiosis. She is both comrade and creator, one and other with this curious object. The Cell series explores the relations between microcosm and macrocosm. Cells have many definitions, from a small biological component of our body s system to the cages, pens, convents, and rooms used to confine prisoners, animals, nuns, and artists.
Cells have the connotation of being prolific units, like families, that belong to a larger system.
Glass, marble, iron, and mirror, 81.75 x 85.5 x 84.5 in. Bourgeois s cells serve in these and other capacities. Some are framed by wooden doors and some by metal cages. Most of the structures have openings or mirrors suspended from the ceiling that invite the viewer to observe, perhaps to spy upon, the inhabitants. The metal is rusted, the windows broken and dusty.