Louise Bourgeois' Arch of Hysteria is a sculpture that depicts a golden contorted female figure suspended upside down.

The figure is taught, as if in divine ascension, it has a duality... it could be in rapture or agony.

The artist's work refers to the work of Jean-Martin Charcot, a nineteenth-century French neurologist best known for his pioneering work on ‘hysteria'.  In the 1800's Charcot described the nervous condition that he associated with women, the physical manifestation of psychological trauma and neuroses within the female body.   

The artist first explored the theme of the ‘hysterical’ body at the Venice Biennale in 1993, the arched figure is enclosed within an ominous steel vault as reminder of the inescapable nature of emotional and psycho-sexual drives.