Transformative Objects and the Aesthetics of Play

How can a work of art be at once completely an object and not merely an object? Somers shows, thrillingly, how works by Louise Bourgeois evoke the transitional objects that mediate our earliest encounters with the world. Transformative Objects is at once an incisive study of a major artist, a lucid introduction to object relations theory, and a richly immersive experience in its own right. * Douglas Mao, Russ Family Professor in the Humanities and Film and Media Program Chair, Johns Hopkins University, USA *Louise Bourgeois once said in an interview: ‘I carry my psychoanalysis within the work’. In this intricate and lively study, Lynn Somers stages encounters with Bourgeois’s images and objects that reveal how this psychoanalysis emerges from and embraces that work. * Naomi Segal, Professor Emerita, Institute of Languages, Cultures & Societies, University of London, UK *

Lynn M. Somers is an Independent Scholar and Adjunct Assistant Professor of art history at Drew University, USA.