A sculpture by Louise Bourgeois sells for more than $32 million in New York

A gigantic spider by French sculptor and visual artist Louise Bourgeois was sold Thursday, May 18 for $ 32.5 million, at an auction of the house Sotheby's in New York.

Three meters high, this spider is one of the most famous works of the artist who died in 2010, of French origin and naturalized American, who spent a large part of his life in New York. His sale was a "truly special moment" because it reached a record for an auction of a work by the artist, but also for a sculpture made by a woman, according to Kelsey Leonard, head of Sotheby's evening auctions. "Les Araignées de Bourgeois are undoubtedly a true masterpiece of twentieth-century art," she said.

A work with very strong, even provocative emotional power

This "Spider" by Louise Bourgeois was previously kept by the Fundaçao Itau in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2022, another Spider by the artist was sold for $40 million at Art Basel in Switzerland.

Louise Bourgeois explored in her work the traumas of her childhood, producing a work with very strong, even provocative emotional power. In particular, she produced a series of giant spiders made of steel and presented as symbols of her mother. Other of these Spiders have been exhibited in renowned museums, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Tate Modern in London or the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.