Arch of Hysteria

Mediums: bronze.
Location: the Museum of Modern Art (New York, the USA).

Louise Bourgeois was a supporter of the theory of unconscious of Freud and for many years was engaged in psychoanalysis, both independently and under the guidance of renowned therapists. The artist’s great interest was the study of hysteria, which at the beginning of the 20th century was considered a female disease that could cause spasms and convulsions of the whole body. Bourgeois expressed these negative manifestations in the sculpture, which shows a human body without a head suspended on a cable, made in real size. The figure cast from bronze, bent in an unnatural position, is made of metal shining like a mirror so that the viewer can see his distorted reflection in every part of it.