Sculpture Studio Spring 2010

Project 4: Self Designed
ARTIST RESEARCH/Source to Self Comparisons

EVA HESSE

Repetition Nineteen III, 1968

Eva Hesse was an artist whose unbelievably short life left a body of work that continues to inspire and pave-the-way for countless future artists. While she had practiced in school with abstract expressionist painting and drawing, she is most well known for her sculptures that are made out of industrial materials and everyday, found objects (theartstor.com). By using materials such as latex, rubber, rope, and rubber tubing (among others) to create her works, Hesse suggests a, “…Range of organic associations, psychological moods and sexual innuendo” (theartstory.com). Her works create occurrences that bring the viewer into an intensely personal situation, without feeling overly sentimental (Nemser 174). In fact, Hesse stated that she saw her practice as the unity of both art and her own life and her works are powerful in that they deliver, “… The message of privacy, of a retreat from language, of a withdrawal into those extremely personal reaches of experience which are beyond or beneath speech” (Wagner 199).
     Now when I look at the work of Eva Hesse I am drawn to two different issues that she is consistently working with. On one hand, I am very much fascinated by the high level of repetition that runs throughout many of Hesse’s sculptures. In her work Hesse repeats, on a massive scale, the acts of binding or wrapping or layering in her pieces, and the amount of repetition of these actions makes the viewer relieve that creation process and the intensity of the making of the work (Lippard 209). In her own words, Hesse said that she repeats forms because, “…It exaggerates, if something is meaningful said ten times” (Nemser). While repetition of certain actions or materials may seem to put Hesse’s work in the category of clichéd, “women’s work”, it instead works to establish the practice of repetition as ritual and these rituals as the cure to life’s feelings of isolation and despair (Lippard 209). In other words, I think that Hesse’s use of repetition in her work makes the piece seem more like an object that was constantly worked on as it came into being, in a way the piece really does have a life of it’s own, and really seems deeply connected to a personal space in the artist.

     Now repetition can be seen to greater and lesser degrees in many works by Hesse, such as the repeated forms of Repetition Nineteen III (1968) and Schema (1967) or in the repeating and crisscrossing, wire-like lines of Metronomic Irregularity I (1966). In regard to Repetition Nineteen III, which consists of a group of 19 “fiberglass buckets”, the repetition of the work is powerful because the repeating, cup-like vessel/forms allows for the viewer to enter into its “landscape of strange and nameless things” (Berger 119). The multitude of these phallic-like containers confronts viewers into noticing differences between the seemingly similar in terms of their form and structure and also their similarity to human skin. Now because the piece contains such a large group of repeated objects, as the viewer moves about the grouping they become aware of how their own body moves through space and psychically center their thoughts of this experience of “sensory discovery” (Berger 119-120). Through use of repetition Hesse allows for the viewer to be both physically and mentally affected by presence of her work and ideas.

Now the other issue that I am consistently interested in by Hesse’s work is the high level of personal connection between her own life and her work. When I say this I am refereeing to, as stated earlier, Hesse believed that, “My life and art have not been separated. They have been together” (Wagner 201). Now of course all artists have some personal connection to the work that they make, but Hesse work is incredibly powerful because the works combine so many differing elements to become something free from and socio-political agenda and the works have an ephemeral life of its own (theartstory.com). Her sculptures work as a “reinvention” of her own time in which form and matter, “…Are given the real possibility of eclipsing one another and within which one experiences the pity and terror of that eclipse” (Krauss 100). In other words, Hesse’s work is so powerful when a viewer encounters it because there is a knowledge that seems to radiate from the piece that tells that it is personal, private and original (Krauss 94).

No Title (Wall Piece), 1970

Many of Hesse’s works can find their groundings in her traumatic childhood, in which her family was forced to flee Germany in the 30’s and relocate to the United States, a transition that was extremely difficult for the family and in her difficult family life in the years that followed (Nemser). One piece that is seen as being highly connected to personal occurrences/trauma from her life is the piece No Title (Wall Piece) (1970). In this work four latex covered “widow frames” hang on the wall with two latex covered ropes that dangle from each frame and onto the floor. The work itself is seen as a form of “transport of trauma” in relation to the memory of Hesse’s mother’s death some 30 years earlier (Pollock 39-40). The constant memory of such an event seems charged into the work’s form, with its “weeping-like” ropes drawing the viewers gaze immediately down from the windows onto the gallery floor (Pollock 49). The piece gives off the feeling of a downward spiral of depression that is met suddenly by the hard earth, yet the work does this in a way that strictly avoids any clear association or depiction. The viewer is still left to feel as if they have come upon this intensely private moment; something so private that the viewer may not be quite sure what they are witnessing, but the immediacy and power of the event is still extremely felt.
     Now in thinking about my own on-going final project, I think I am influenced in some small way by both of these factors of Hesse’s work. In one way I am deeply interested in the aspect of repetition and personal-connecton that occurs in her work and in my own. If in Hesse’s work, repetition work to represent the ritual-like feeling behind the pieces and established the piece as something of its own entity, then I would absolutely want my own work (with the building up of wax coins) to be seen as the site of a private ritual that the viewer has come across. In my opinion Hesse’s works are so strong because there is a sense of anonymity to them (what exactly are they made of? How were they made? What do they mean?) and I want my own works to have the same power to strike a viewer strongly with a feeling that they may or may not be able to place.
     On a different note, however, I have noticed that throughout the creation of her works, Hesse had seemed to be very interested in what exactly were the properties of the materials that she was working with (latex, rubber, etc). Understanding how the materials worked and reacted to one another allowed for Hesse to build up the piece until it went beyond the materiality that it was constructed out of and became its own “thing.” I think that, as of right now, I am much less interested in understanding how materials really work as I am more interested in getting immediately to the idea/concept that is driving me to make the work. I think that this knowledge of my own working habits is something to strive for in looking at my future work, especially after seeing the ephemeral, seemingly private work of Eva Hesse.

Sources:

Berger, Maurice, et al. Eva Hesse: A Retrospective. New Haven: Yale University Press,1992. Print.

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hesse-eva.htm

Hesse, Eva. Interview by Cindy Nemser. Art Talk: Conversations with 15 Women Artists. By Cindy Nemser. New York City: Harper Collins, 1975. 173-199. Print.

Pollock, Griselda, and Vanessa Corby, eds. Encountering Eva Hesse. New York City: Prestel Publishing, 2006. Print.

Wagner, Anne Middleton. "Another Hesse." Three Artists (Three Women). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. 191-282. Print.

Lippard, Lucy. Eva Hesse. New York City: New York University Press, 1976. Print.

Krauss, Rosalind E. "Eva Hesse: Contingent." Bachelors. Cambridge: The MIT Press,1999. 91-100. Print.

Images:

Artstor.com

http://kathrynclark.blogspot.com/2010/11/inspiration-sol-lewitt-letter-to-eva.html