The Blind Leading the Blind

Mediums: wood.
Location: Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, United States).

One of Bourgeois’s earliest sculptural works in which she used abstract forms to express her feelings towards her parents. The sculpture is extremely simple and concise. It consists of several wooden boards pointed downwards, connected from above by a common thin element and in unstable equilibrium. These images arose from the artist’s childhood memories when, during quarrels between her parents, she hid under the table, feeling fear and estrangement. The plot for the work was a parable from the New Testament, about the blind, who lead each other to inevitable death not knowing it.