EROTIC ABSTRACTION
Hannah Wilke + Eva Hesse at Acquavella
The groundbreaking work of Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke, two pioneering artists of Post-Minimalism, is being showcased side by side for the first time in a show titled Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke: Erotic Abstraction at Acquavella Galleries in New York. Twenty-three works created between 1965 and 1977 are featured. Many are foundational works of Post-Minimalist and feminist art.
Both Hesse and Wilke lived in New York in the 1960s and were on similar artistic journeys. Eva Hesse (1936-1970) was a German-born American sculptor. She spent the first three years of her life escaping from Nazi Germany until her family emigrated to New York City in 1939. Hesse attended the School of Industrial Art, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Cooper Union, and the School of Art and Architecture at Yale, where she received her B.F.A. in 1959. In 1962 Hesse married fellow sculptor Tom Doyle, but the pair divorced in 1966. Having pursued a career initially in commercial textile design, she began experimenting with everyday materials such as rope, wire, rubber, and so on to see how these primary objects could relate to psychology, stated of mind, and proto-feminist, sexual innuendo. She died from a brain tumor in 1970 at the age of 34. Despite having lived a short life, her impact on the art world was immense.
Hannah Wilke (1940-1993) was a pioneering feminist conceptual artist known for working in sculpture, drawing, assemblage, photography, performance, video, and installation. Born in New York, she attended the Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she obtained a B.F.A. in 1961 and a B.S. in Education in 1962. Wilke spent a large part of her life teaching art and conducting workshops. Her work was widely exhibited in the 1960s, part of multiple group exhibitions. Wilke had her first one-woman gallery exhibitions in 1972 at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, and Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles. In the 70s, she became involved in some feminist publications and also began doing performance art. She created works until she died in 1993, and her legacy lives on.
Both women were pioneers of the post minimal art movement, but they did not feel entirely at ease with the language of Minimalism. The exhibit’s curator, Eleanor Nairne, writes: “Hesse and Wilke shared in the desire to adopt and subvert the strict geometries of Minimalism; softening the language of cool detachment with a sense of physical touch.” They both embraced materials not widely used in the 1960s, and many of their experimental and innovative creations are part of the show.
Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke: Erotic Abstraction is curated by Eleanor Nairne of the Barbican Art Gallery in London and is on view at Acquavella Galleries from May 5 until June 18, 2021. The exhibition includes pieces from The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Williams College Museum of Art, The Hannah Wilke Collection and Archive, Los Angeles, plus many private collections.
