The Primitive Edge of Creativity

Destruction and Reparation in Louise Bourgeois’s Art

Bibliographic Data

ID8333738
AuthorsBritt-Marie Schiller, Britt‐Marie Schiller (corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume65
Issue2
Pages221-250
Publication date2017-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0003065116687081
PMID28899122
OpenAlexW2606455387
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

Viewed within the psychic geography of Thomas Ogden’s modes of generating and organizing experience, in particular the autistic-contiguous mode, Louise Bourgeois’s creative imagination can be seen as originating on what Ogden (1989) has called the primitive edge of experience. This mode, dominated by the sensory, is characterized by chaos, fragmentation, and a loss of boundaries. In dynamic movements between the depressive and the autistic-contiguous positions, between destructive and reparative impulses, Bourgeois transforms experiences of chaos, as well as destructive aggression, into aesthetic order and form, into works of art. She is able to delve into the most elemental and presymbolic modes of psychic experience and artistically harness raw feelings and sensations on what can be called the primitive edge of creativity

Aesthetics · Art · Bourgeoisie · Creativity · Epistemology · Feeling · Orderliness · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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