Photo: Louise Bourgeois, Arch of Hysteria, 2000. Courtesy, Galerie Karsten Greve, Köln, Paris, Milano, St Moritz and Cheim & Read, New York. Photo: Christopher Burke

Kate Day enjoys a wide-ranging exhibition of one of the true giants of modern sculpture.

For the first time in the UK, until 9 May 2004, the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh is hosting an exhibition of work by sculptor Louise Bourgeois.

Born in Paris in 1911, Bourgeois moved to New York in 1938 where she continues to live and work.

Bourgeois’ work seems to defy time and this show includes pieces dating from the 1940s to the present day. Impressively, early pieces continue to be relevant to Bourgeois’ practice.

In a video accompanying this exhibition, the curator, Frances Morris, points out that throughout the course of her career Bourgeois has seemed to “weave” her work together. By revisiting themes, visual ideas and subject matter Bourgeois has been able to ‘concertina time.’

Photo: Louise Bourgeois, What is the Shape of the Problem, 1999. Suite of 9 lithographs and letterpress diptychs.Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York. Photo: Christopher Burke

The predominant medium of the sculpture in this show is that of stitched and filled fabric and its theme is that of the tortured human spirit, but included are also earlier wall-mounted prints and mixed media pieces illustrating decades of congruent work.

A family tradition of crafting fabric has only recently been explored by Bourgeois, and with her antique dealer father and seamstress mother, it would be impossible to ignore the influence of her family on this particular work.

Early documentation had been keen to implicate her father’s affair with an English nanny in the harrowing nature of much of her work. But despite these obvious connections Bourgeois is keen to play down the depth of her father’s influence.

Instead she has said of her early years: “My childhood has never lost its magic, it has never lost its mystery, and it has never lost its drama”.

Photo: Louise Bourgeois, Cell XVI (Portrait), 2000. Courtesy, Galerie Karsten Greve, Köln, Paris, Milano, St Moritz. Photo: Christopher Burke

Whatever the effect of this affair, Bourgeois seems to know much of ‘drama’ and for the large part of the last century has sought to explore the intricate, angst-filled workings of the human mind. Many of the curiously crafted sculptures seem to play out their own torment.

Cell XVI (Portrait), 2000, is perhaps the most dishevelled of the pieces on display. It is a patched fabric head set on a plinth made of a battered-looking silver rose bowl and is surrounded by a glass vitrine with a meshed metal backing.

This piece makes uncomfortable viewing, questioning the nature of the human mind while imitating and undermining classic Greek and Roman sculpture.

Three more abstracted, solitary heads seem to endlessly scream out open-mouthed, their voices contained within a glass cell, each one with its own pain.

Photo: Louise Bourgeois, Untitled, 1996. Cloth, bone, rubber and steel. Courtesy Cheim & Reid, New York. Photo: Allan Finkelman

There is a more recognisable collection among these abstracted forms. Bourgeois was asked to contribute to an exhibition on the theme of Oedipus and although the subject was not of her choice, the piece seems to be effortlessly patched into her eerie and uncomfortable style.

A group of ten tableaux represent the Greek myth in an almost childlike way. But closer inspection reveals the brutal nature of the tale and the pained emotion within it. Bourgeois seems to empathise with her subject instinctively.

With comparable empathy, a series of nine engravings, He disappeared into complete silence, 1947, matches short stories of loss and loneliness with semi-abstract but apparently architectural illustrations.

A ‘stitch in time’ can be seen between these early drawings and a group of three totem poles standing close by. Though made of fabric, and instantly recognisable as such, the poles are re-enforced from within and stand firm and indomitable. Like the structures in Bourgeois’ illustrations, the standing forms appear to represent solitary standing figures.

This is a huge representative exhibition of her work and I have mentioned just a few of the many intriguing pieces on display.

By such faithfulness to her ideas and beliefs, Bourgeois has been unflinching in her ability to surf the rolling trends of art for the past sixty years.

Perhaps it was her family after all and particularly her mother, of whom she said "always encouraged [her]" and "was a feminist", who gave her the courage to dissect such changing times.