New Louise BOURGEOIS collection empowers women through skateboarding and art

A life, ever burning.

Artists like Louise Bourgeois come along once in a century. She looked life full in the face, embraced and dissected her struggles and traumas, moved beautifully between subjects, forms, and materials, and did it all with a childlike perspective that stayed with her until her passing at age 98. She was, truly, one of the most inspirational artists of our time.

Using the body as a primary form, Bourgeois explored the full range of human experience. Born in Paris, in 1911, much of her inspiration derived from her childhood and the complex, often traumatic, dynamics within her family. The effects of her father’s domineering behavior and the caregiving she provided as a teenager to her chronically ill mother, who died in 1932, led to pervasive feelings of guilt, betrayal, and abandonment—themes which form the core of her multifaceted work. From intimate drawings to large-scale installations created from a variety of materials including wood, plaster, marble, and bronze, Bourgeois expressed psychological states through a visual vocabulary of formal and symbolic equivalents.

Working closely with The Easton Foundation, which manages the artist’s legacy, we were inspired to keep the flame of Louise Bourgeois’s work burning in a totally new form—skateboard art editions. This is a medium which, by its very nature, must be destroyed to be creative, and is created to be destroyed. This kind of paradox is at play in much of Bourgeois’s work and can be seen in the 4 key images that comprise this collection: Femme Maison; Ode à Ma Mère; Extreme Tension; Les Fleurs.

Empowering women against adversity.

Each artwork is to be released in a limited-run of 100 skateboard art editions, and 10% of the revenue from all sales will go directly to Skateistan. This award-winning, internationally operating NGO was the central focus of the 2020-Oscar winning documentary Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) and has a specific focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women through skateboarding and education programs.

“Louise believed in the power of change, of taking charge of your destiny. She believed that you could pick yourself up and get back on an even keel. But she also believed in ‘acting out’ in order to do this. Everyone has to figure out an activity that works for them. If skateboarding gives people freedom, power and pleasure, then that is a form of ‘acting out’.”

– Jerry GOROVOY, longtime assistant and friend

We were lucky enough to speak with Jerry GOROVOY about Louise BOURGEOIS work. He shared his thoughts on our collaboration with THE SKATEROOM founder Charles-Antoine BODSON. Check it out below.