One of Louise Bourgeois's most striking sculptures is the Spider. It fits no genre and all of them - architecture, sculpture, installation, and its contents evoke social issues. In this book, literary critic and theorist, Mieke Bal presents the work as a theoretical object, one that can teach us how to think, speak and write about art. Bal argues that art must be ubderstood in relationship to the present time of viewing as opposed to veiwing in light of preceding events, such as the historical past of influences and art movement. Bal demonstrates that the closer the engagement with the work of art, the more adequate the result of the analysis. In short, this book offers a theoretical model for analyzing art out of context and a meditation on a key work of art of the modern era.