Why are You Here?

It is as if it were torn out of Webster’s Dictionary, enlarged, and slapped onto a canvas.

Louise Bourgeois refers to clothes as “a test of taste (p. 20).” Rather than creating a garment for a specific person, purpose, or occasion, the clothes will tell you where you were, who you were with, what you are going to do. The piece is of a direct and literal translation, representing ideas. It portrays the definition of the actual word “idea,” its meaning, Greek origin, pronunciation…etc. Through her art, Bourgeois explains her interest in men, and only men, and relates it to the clothes that she incorporates in the piece called “Cell” (Clothes), 1996. She is attracted to the uniformity of sleepwear and speaks of its relative importance since we do spend as much time in them as we do in our day-time clothing. She sees them as story tellers, revealing the events of the everyday life. Bourgeois only makes a connection between men and women through clothes. Women's clothes tell you if a man is standing nearby. Thus, Bourgois believes that the clothes do make an impression on the person wearing it and those who perceive it. The clothes may also say something about the personal preferences of the surrounding people. Instead of an abstract of ideas, which are later reinterpreted and combined into an image, she takes the clothes that people have worn and found objects left at her home, and creates works of art that tell you about the lives, the ideas, the mishaps that these material things have undergone. It is a reverse process of what we normally think of in the use of clothing.

It may also be used in a sentence, the way many words are represented in a dictionary. ... Maybe here, write a dictionary definition of "clothing."

Many see the fashion industry and the arts as entirely separate things, but Bourgeois’s art work is an example of the many ways fashion and art are related, and more so, that fashion is art. There are many that see the fashion industry as a superficial, media-frenzied corporation, but these people seem to overlook and ignore the artistry that goes into sketching such abstract constructions of design and the work that goes into making a piece of garment, similar to making a piece of sculpture or a painting, or any other genre of art. As a designer myself, I tend to grab a lot of the fine arts and abstract work that I am exposed to and use them in sketches. Even before I came upon Bourgeois’ piece, I was drawing ideas from her sculptural art work and incorporating them into my designs. I asked Louise, “You’ve really never bought your own clothes?! How is that possible?” She simply responded, “It is not impossible.” In some ways she is her own found object in the world of art.