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This is a welcome relief! Because some-
times I can get very excited over the past.
I find this very embarrassing and then,
instead of turning against my irrepressible
self, you see, I turn against the poor
people that are no more. I turn against
my family. I say damn them. And this rat
— you see his queer little eyes there? — is a
welcome relief. He seems to me as if to
say, “I know what you mean, I have gone
through that myself.” You have a right to
be fed up and you have a right to be a rat
once in a while. You don’t have to be
good all the time!
Louise Bourgeois, Album, New York, Peter Blum Edition, 1994.
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Louise Bourgeois
American, born France. 1911–2010 3040 works onlineBorn in Paris in 1911, Louise Bourgeois was raised by parents who ran a tapestry restoration business. A gifted student, she also helped out in the workshop by drawing missing elements in the scenes depicted on the tapestries.
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