Jean-Louis Bourgeois

Who is Jean-Louis Bourgeois?

Jean-Louis Bourgeois is an author and the son of artist Louise Bourgeois and art historian Robert Goldwater. Bourgeois studied literature and architectural history at Harvard University, where, for an essay on labyrinths, he won the Bowdoin Prize. In 1969 and 1970 Bourgeois worked at ArtForum before becoming an expert in the production and history of mud brick architecture. He is the author of the volume "Spectacular Vernacular: the Adobe Tradition" which established him as one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject. He owns a home in Djenne, Mali and has actively been involved in architectural conservation efforts there including the preservation of the world's largest adobe building the Great Mosque of Djenne, and has written extensively on the subject While living in Djennê, Bourgeois opposed the Talo Dam project, and became a fixture in the city's cultural life. Bourgeois has been adopted by the reigning King of Djenne as a son. He appeared in the biopic on his mother Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine. Bourgeois owns an adobe house in Taos, New Mexico and has written on the Southwestern American Indian Adobe tradition