Bronze, silver nitrate patina
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351" aria-label="More by Louise Bourgeois" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Louise Bourgeois</a>
Give or Take
ARTIST ROOMS 
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by Artist Rooms Foundation 2013
<p><span>Give or Take </span>is a bronze sculpture with a silver nitrate patina. It depicts an outstretched and closed hand, connected to form a single entity. The object appears to be two forearms fused together, one blending into the other, but is otherwise disembodied. The work was made by Louise Bourgeois in 2002 by casting the hands and forearms of her longtime assistant Jerry Gorovoy. Gorovoy was a frequent model for Bourgeois’s works, particularly those which feature hands. Another bronze sculpture, <span>The Welcoming Hands </span>1996 (Jardin des Tuileries, Paris) for instance, shows<span> </span>the artist’s hands clutching those of Gorovoy and in the series of drawings <span>10am is When You Come to Me </span>2006 (Tate AL00345) their hands reach out, meet and interact in a reflection on their friendship and working relationship. Bourgeois met Gorovoy in the late 1970s: he was her assistant, close friend and confidant for over thirty years.</p>
sculpture bronze silver nitrate patina
26 October 2013 – 18 May 2014
2014-05-18
26 October 2013 – 18 May 2014
2014-05-18
2013-10-26
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2013-10-26
ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois
Collection based display
18 July 2014 – 12 October 2014
2014-10-12
18 July 2014 – 12 October 2014
2014-10-12
2014-07-18
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Middlesbrough, UK)
http://www.visitmima.com/
2014-07-18
ARTIST ROOMS 2014: Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
16 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
16 January 2015 – 19 April 2015
2015-04-19
2015-01-16
Southampton City Art Gallery (Southampton, UK)
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/leisure/arts
2015-01-16
ARTIST ROOMS 2015: Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
10 June 2016 – 18 June 2017
2017-06-18
10 June 2016 – 18 June 2017
2017-06-18
2016-06-10
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2016-06-10
ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois
Collection based display
1 September 2017 – 18 November 2017
2017-11-18
1 September 2017 – 18 November 2017
2017-11-18
2017-09-01
Perth Museum & Art Gallery (Perth, UK)
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/
2017-09-01
ARTIST ROOMS 2017: Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
6 July 2021 – 16 January 2022
2022-01-16
6 July 2021 – 16 January 2022
2022-01-16
2021-07-06
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2021-07-06
ARTIST ROOMS Louise Bourgeois
Collection based display
23 July 2022 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
23 July 2022 – 19 November 2022
2022-11-19
2022-07-23
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum (Rugby, UK)
18 March 2023 – 26 June 2023
2023-06-26
2023-03-18
Dorset Museum (Dorchester, UK)
8 July 2023 – 9 September 2023
2023-09-09
2023-07-08
Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool, UK)
18 November 2023 – 11 February 2024
2024-02-11
2023-11-18
Burton Art Gallery and Museum (Bideford, UK)
2 March 2024 – 9 June 2024
2024-06-09
2024-03-02
Aberdeen Art Gallery (Aberdeen, UK)
http://www.aagm.co.uk
6 July 2024 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
2024-07-06
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
2022-07-23
Louise Bourgeois
Loan-out
Give or Take
object: 86 × 596 × 127 mm, 6 kg
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a> 
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by Artist Rooms Foundation 2013
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Give or Take </i>is a bronze sculpture with a silver nitrate patina. It depicts an outstretched and closed hand, connected to form a single entity. The object appears to be two forearms fused together, one blending into the other, but is otherwise disembodied. The work was made by Louise Bourgeois in 2002 by casting the hands and forearms of her longtime assistant Jerry Gorovoy. Gorovoy was a frequent model for Bourgeois’s works, particularly those which feature hands. Another bronze sculpture, <i>The Welcoming Hands </i>1996 (Jardin des Tuileries, Paris) for instance, shows<b> </b>the artist’s hands clutching those of Gorovoy and in the series of drawings <i>10am is When You Come to Me </i>2006 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-10-am-is-when-you-come-to-me-al00345" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00345</span></a>) their hands reach out, meet and interact in a reflection on their friendship and working relationship. Bourgeois met Gorovoy in the late 1970s: he was her assistant, close friend and confidant for over thirty years.</p>
<p>As the title suggests, the hands in <i>Give or Take</i> visualise the physical acts of giving and taking. The outstretched hand appears to offer support, comfort and reassurance, as well as suggesting loneliness: while the closed hand appears to deny human contact suggesting withdrawal or contentment. Hands occur frequently in Bourgeois’s work, often as symbols of support and dependence, such as in <i>Nature Study </i>1986 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-nature-study-al00228" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00228</span></a>). <i>Give or Take, </i>however, presents a far more ambiguous view of human relationships. Rather than show the interaction between two bodies, this single limb uncannily represents two opposing gestures, perhaps referring to the experience of sustaining contradictory feelings and desires, a theme Bourgeois had explored before in her important sculpture <i>Janus Fleuri</i> from 1968 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-janus-fleuri-al00347" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00347</span></a>).</p>
<p>Despite the singularity of the object, the ‘giving’ and ‘taking’ hands might also be seen as oppositional. That these hands could never embrace, seems to indicate that the apparently symbiotic actions of giving and taking are rarely reciprocal. This is echoed in the artist’s decision to title the work <i>Give or Take</i>, rather than follow the form of the commonplace phrase ‘give and take’. Whereas the latter suggests cooperation and mutual understanding, the work’s title proposes an ultimatum, between two irreconcilable positions.</p>
<p>This work may also be seen to exemplify a ‘part-object’, a term used by psychoanalysts such as Melanie Klein to refer to parts of the body that attest to physical and emotional relationships between infants and adults. The art historian Mignon Nixon has written on the subject of the part-object and its influence on Bourgeois’s work: ‘Klein contends that the subject first relates to its environment as a field of objects (called part-objects) to be fused or fragmented, possessed or destroyed, by means of phantasies of introjection, projection and splitting that are themselves produced by the drives.’ (Nixon 2005, p.8.) Nixon argues that by fragmenting parts of the body, Bourgeois represents the complex array of emotional states that structure our identities and relationships.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Mignon Nixon, <i>Fantastic Reality: Louise Bourgeois and a Story of Modern Art</i>, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London 2005.<br/>Francis Morris (ed.), <i>Louise Bourgeois</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Modern, London 2007, reproduced p.63.<br/>Lucy Askew and Anthony d’Offay, <i>Louise Bourgeois: A Woman Without Secrets</i>, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2013, pp.58, 85, reproduced p.59.</p>
<p>Allan Madden<br/>The University of Edinburgh<br/>November 2014</p>
<p>
<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS</i>
</p>
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Summary
2016-03-18T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT