Eva Hesse is an American sculptor often discussed in relation to Minimalism and Postminimalism. I discovered her while reading Art Talk. Her biography gets a lot of attention and it is not a surprise that many writers have focused on how this chain of life events played a role in the work she produced.

Eva was born in Germany in 1936, at the age of two she fled to the Netherlands with her sister, later moving on to England before reuniting with her parents. The family eventually moved to the United States. Her parents would divorce and when Eva was ten her mother committed suicide. At the age of 33 Eva was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which would lead to her death in 1970.

Repetition Nineteen III © The Estate of Eva Hesse. Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

What really interested me about Hesse was not her biography, or her work. I have never had much interest in modern art; sculpture is something I am beginning to become interested in and am drawn to color, something that is almost non-existent in much of Eva’s work. Reading her interview she spoke with ease about her life, at ease with what had happened and where she was. In all honesty I was inspired by her. The relaxed nature she presented in the interview drew me to her. She discussed how she worked, how her creative process did not start with a final idea in mind. Eva’s work is not about the final piece of art, rather she talked about finding out what the medium she is working with could become.

All artists have a process, Eva’s process is recorded for us to see because she experimented with media. A process which created many test sculptures as she learned what the material could do.

In the early 1960s after studying art at both Cooper Union and Yale University she married sculptor Tom Doyle. A marriage which would end in divorce, however the couple spent a year working at a studio in Germany. It was during this period that Eva started to experiment with different materials she found including electrical wire and masonite. These art works out started as reliefs and evolved into sculptural objects with the use of papier mache, nets and string.

The assortment of materials she would use grew.  She used tubing and metal in her sculptures, then latex, fiberglass, wax and plastic upon her return to the United States.  Each material was an experiment, in the case of latex she selected it because she did not know how to work with it and she knew that it would deteriorate over time. These changes have occurred in the latex, the deterioration and discoloration of the material means that the work can never be completed. Her works today are different than they were  when she originally created them. This was something that Hesse accepted would happen when she was creating the work.

Sans II © The Estate of Eva Hesse - Image from SFMOMA

Due to Eva’s very short artistic career her test sculptures and experiments have come to be displayed, studied and understood much the same as her “finished” pieces. Briony Fer discusses how these pieces came to be part of Hesse’s oeuvre in the book Eva Hesse Studiowork. In truth, if she had not designated them as experiments or the molds for final works we may never know the difference. They have been displayed in cases, a manner which has been compared to works by Duchamp and Oldenberg.

Untitled, 1967–68 The LeWitt Collection, Chester, Connecticut © The Estate of Eva Hesse. Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

The idea the Fer stresses is that we as viewers are looking to find the final, that we are not comfortable with the idea of there being a test without a resolution. However Hesse would have never thought of art in that way. Starting something does not mean that there is an defined end, this was the message Hesse had shared with Nemser in Art Talk.

Maybe that is the best take away message, the best thing to think about as we start a new year.  So often we focus on goals, the idea of reaching an end point. We are focused on completing something, accomplishing something that we have created in our mind as the thing we want. More often it that idea of what we want is just that, an idea not a real thing. Maybe this year I will experiment with French and look at new ways to understand the art around me, rather than setting goals.

Links

• The Jewish Museum

I finished reading Art Talk by Cindy Nemser, a book that I was given as a high school graduation gift. Since then the book has moved with me several times and never been read. This fall when I finished up most of my class reading I finally picked it up as my “gym” book. The teacher who had given this book to me, clearly knew me better when I was 17 then I knew myself at 30. If I had read the book before now I am not sure that I would have found it so inspiring, however when I was only a few pages in it connected perfectly with me.  It has been a stars aligning sort of experience and has been yet another marker on my journey letting me know that going back to school is what I was meant to do.

Art Talk by Cindy Nemser via Goodreads

The book itself is a little dated, originally published in 1975 the artists have evolved since its publication but their attitudes toward art as a female artist does not change with time. The whole book is a collection of  interviews between Cindy Nemsert and 15 female artists. Her focus is on the struggle to become an artist as a female and discussing the culture of the art world in the 50′s through the 70′s. Many of the artists she sits down with share with her how they have managed to do what was seen as impossible, be a wife, a mother and an artist. It is their attitudes that are inspiring. They talk about sacrifices and adapting while still remaining themselves and not compromising there artistic goals. Those that married show how important a supportive husband is in reaching goals and in the case of Lee Krasner, how important a supportive wife can be in helping her husband reach his goals as well.

Each artist opened up a new avenue of thinking about art to me and has inspired me to learn even more about their work. The book also provides a wonderful look at the crossing paths or artists, gallery owners,  art critics and surprisingly how influential de Kooning was. Never really a fan of his work, these artists insights into his work has perused me to take a deeper look at his art. Definitely a interesting idea, a book on female artists inspiring the study of a male artist, who many critics and art viewers have felt present women as violent and or being violated.