Eva Hesse by Tosh Berman

 

Tosh on Eva Hesse

January 11, 2021, by Tosh Berman

 

January 11, 2021

A quote from the artist Eva Hesse: “Life doesn’t last; art doesn’t last. Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1938, and forced to flee the Nazis in 1938. her sister and Eva had to be separated from their parents and went to the Netherlands. Six months later, the family reunited, went to England, and then settled into Manhattan’s Washington Heights in 1939. Her parents separated, and her father remarried in 1945, but sadly Eva’s mom committed suicide in 1946. In 1969, Eva Hesse was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and she died in 1970. Her work as an artist lasted for a decade, and her death came at the age of 34. 

At 18, she interned at “Seventeen” Magazine, while taking classes at Art Students League, and eventually to Yale University where she received her BA in 1959. At Yale, she studied under Josef Albers at that time, influenced by Abstract Expressionism. Back in Manhattan, she became a close friend to the artist Sol LeWitt.  In the early 60s, she mostly did abstract drawings but then made these sculptures, made out of fiberglass, latex, and plastics. Her sculptures were delicate, textural, and sensual.

My understanding is that her work is challenging to preserve due to the material she used, beyond fiberglass. It seems latex ages, but then that’s Life. The quotation at the start of this essay, I think, is true. Still, I think it’s more about the nature of an idea of a piece and knowing that a material that one uses can not always last. Yet, for the moments it’s here, the work is fantastic. To preserve one’s history through a medium whatever it’s music, painting, sculpture, or cinema, there will always be the issue of how to maintain the work for future generations. Then again, I’m obsessed with the thought that art physically changes, as well as people. I don’t think art is meant to be frozen in time but lives in different formats and systems. It’s fantastic that I listened to music from the radio, then the vinyl LP album, to CD, and now streaming. The same as seeing a movie in a theater, watching it on a VHS tape, and then DVD. The format changes art. When we see a painting in person, it’s nothing like seeing that same painting in a magazine or book. The texture is different. 

With respect to my writing, I consistently edit and rearrange the text as time marches on. I feel work is never finished. Except when the artist/writer dies, then the work is completed. Curators and museums have a knack for showing old art as if something new. You put a work of art that is familiar to the viewer, but it’s next to an obscure piece of that artist, then the context can change. LeWitt mentions that his good friend wanted her art to be preserved, and more likely it will, but then again, it’s like re-doing that piece. Art does die, but it never stops and moves on to other platforms, but nothing is ever the same. 

"Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947-2016 at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel

Lee Bontecou "Untitled" 1964

I’m sad. For the past six months I have lived among the artworks of the female artists who are in the “Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women.” As I write this, it’s September 4th, the last day of the exhibition. Today, my wife left for Japan, my co-worker will be leaving for school sometime next week, and the show is over today. All three “closings” depress me greatly. As I walk around the gallery today, I photograph the images with my eyes, regarding the artwork here, and memory recall will be the main source for me. There is the catalog, and it’s a nice one, but it’s not the same as seeing these works in front of you. I know in the future I will be discussing this show with another person who visited the exhibition, and due to our memories, I suspect that it will be a separate experience. I have never ‘shared’ a common memory. Each person who takes in an art work, usually have their own means in obtaining that piece in their memory. 

For example, I have looked at Louise Bourgeois’ sculptures in the gallery across from the bookstore. I also have been looking at Ruth Asawa’s beautiful, yet fragile works of art for the past six months. When you sit by the cash register, one eye tends to wander over to the gallery with the glass doors. Since the show opened, we have been receiving up to 200 people a day. Maybe more. Although the show is focused on women’s art, I tend to forget the gender, but I have a memory of the art. 

Magdalena Abakanowicz (Wheel with Rope" 1973

Magdalena Abakanowicz’s “Wheel with Rope” (1973) is a powerful presence in a room. Technically the work spreads out to the next gallery space, with its long rope attached to the oversized wheel. For me, it reeks of the early 20th century technology or even something earlier. It’s the most aggressive work in this show. And oddly enough the work fits in with the overall architecture of the Hauser Wirth & Schimmel complex. The building used to be a food processing plant during the turn-of-the-century. So, I imagine seeing a giant wheel on the premise in 1899, was probably not that much of an unusual sight. Still, “Wheel with Rope” is a very strong piece, especially when it’s placed inside a gallery space. What I have read on Abakanowicz was that she witnessed the powers of the Stalin years in Poland, her home country. My first thought was that the wheel is used to not move itself, but there to pull something in, that would be attached to the rope. The rope is thick, perhaps to hold a large ship or boat? The work was made way after the Poland issue, but still, the sculpture has a political feel. It’s very mysterious. 

The additional time I spent with this exhibition, the more I see it as a group of artists - not tied to gender, but more with the thought of sculpture as the medium that they all share. The first gallery, coming from East 3rd street entrance, was art by Ruth Asawa, Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois and Louise Nevelson. As I mentioned, this is right by our bookstore. So I would glance into this room quite frequently. For me, this room of art was perfect. For one, the works in this show are put together in a chronicle order, so in a fashion, the show is set by time, not really theme - but it’s interesting to see the show as what was happening at a certain moment or time . The artists came from all over the world, so it didn’t focus on a nationality - but more what was happening with abstract sculpture. 

Ruth Asawa "Untitled [S.208, Hanging Three Interlocked Spheres, Each Containing Three Interlocked Spheres], ca. 1962 

The one lasting gift from this exhibition is that I was introduced to new artists. Oddly enough, I didn’t know Asawa or Bontecou’s work at all. I was impressed with Bontecou’s timeless brutality - and two feet away, was Asawa’s profoundly beautifully textural hangings. Sculptures to me are about space, and how that space is filled. I would think first-hand, that it must be difficult to share space with Bontecou’s wall-hanging sculptures. Yet, the delicacy of Asawa, really made her work stand out as well as Bontecou, due to its contrasting aesthetic. In many ways, it’s Beauty and the Beast. Not set as a character, but as works in the same room. Which is set quite elegantly, due to the room’s architecture. Space issues also come to light with Eva Hesse’s work for the floor “Augment” and the hanging on the wall works “Aught.” The beauty of both pieces I don’t think can be photographed properly, due to the fading of the latex material, which seems to have a life of its own. For me, photography tends to fail in front of a sculpture or a work that is two or three-dimensional. I think it’s important that the viewer is actually there and either sharing or standing by that specific space of the artwork. 

Sheila Hicks "Banisteriopsis" 1965-1966

I was also impressed with Sheila Hicks" "Banisteriopsis" which is made of linen and wool. In other words, yarn. I never heard of the word 'banisteriopsis' and later, I read up that it's a plant that grows in Central and South America. In the 1950s, she spent a great deal of time in that area of the world. There is something Peruvian or that part of the world regarding this specific piece. I think due to yarn. When I think yarn, I think Peru. No, I haven't the foggiest reason why. I find this the funniest work in the exhibition. For one, it's pleasing to the eye, but I tend to come to this room to visit the piece over and over again. 

Eva Hesse "Aught" 1968

The exhibition was co-curated by Paul Schimmel and Jenni Sorkin. One can always say 'why so-so is not in the show?" Nevertheless, they did an excellent job in making this exhibition work. For a more overall look of the show, here's the website:
http://www.hauserwirthschimmel.com/…/revolution-in-the-maki…

Eva Hesse by Tosh Berman

German born, Jewish and of course, had to be on the move during her childhood in the 1940s, Eva Hesse lived an intense short life. She died at the age of 34. Yet she is the gift that keeps on giving.   Like my other favorite artist, Yves Klein, who also died at the age of 34.  Both artists, when I look at their work, deals with life as a force to reckon with - it’s not about early death, but living life intensely and correctly.  That word “correctly” has a moral tinge to it, and I don’t mean it in that sense.  For these two artists, there were choices in front of them, and both made the correct decisions.  Hesse had a rather odd and complicated family life - a manic - depressive mother including a step-mom who had the same name as her, but also suffered from brain cancer.  Apparently within weeks of Hesse’s actual illness. 

Hesse worked in the medium of paint, but also did sculptures using latex, fiberglass, and plastics.  There is for sure a substantial argument for and against the lasting of the material she used in her art work, but I feel Hesse knew her art pieces wouldn’t last forever due to the material she chose for her sculptures.  There’s a beauty in thought, knowing what you leave on this mortal earth will not last.   I often think of her sculptures in that light.  There are two works of art displayed in the current exhibition “Revolution in the Making” at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel by Hesse. 

Eva Hesse "Aught"

“Aught” is four canvases with latex and filler stretched over it.  The photograph here (images give a hint of an artwork, but one really needs to see certain works in person) doesn’t show the fragility of the work.   Each canvas is different from the other.  Either by coloration or the aging of the work.  I could be wrong, but the four individual pieces that make up this work of art, I think, would have been identical, at the time they were made.  

Marcel Duchamp’s famous large glass art piece, covered by dust, and photographed by Man Ray is another work, that comments on time and how it affects art.   Not exactly a decay in the same sense of Hesse’s work, but the awareness of the passing of time, and to me, an obvious reflection or meditation.  It seems, when you read about her, Hesse’s life must have been difficult - yet the work she produced, is to me, a delight.  “Aught” changes over time, and that is what makes the work so powerful and beautiful.  Yet, it’s a work that needs to be re-visited many times.   The show has been up for four months already, so I come back to “Aught” repeatedly, and I feel each time I look at it, there is some sort of change - which I suspect it is more how I look at an object or art, but nevertheless, there is something about it that changes.  I imagine if you’re the owner, you can look at this work on a consistent basis for decades, noticing a change here or there - but for us (the others) we can only see it for short periods of time.  So with respect of time passing, it is not our time that is going by, but the work itself that is commenting on that passage from one point to another.  

Eva Hesse "Augment" 

“Augment” is a funny title for the other piece that is in the exhibition.  It’s layers of latex canvases that are laid on the floor on top of each other.   It’s a beautiful piece of sculpture, but it reads like a painting to me.  I think due to its flatness, but it is 17 units or individual pieces that make up “Augment.” I don’t see this work as a passage of time, or dealing with decay -but more of a design that is somewhat hypnotic, and for some odd (unexplained) reason reminds me of layers of bacon on a plate.  And although I do not eat bacon, I think the bacon itself is a beautiful looking meat.  Yet, it’s the repetition of the pieces that give it a funny aspect, where one approaches this work as almost like slices of a whole bread loaf.  There is a natural or environmental aspect of the work, but I don’t feel that is the intention.  I think it’s more of the fact that it exists, and that is the sole purpose of this work.   Seeing layers of the same thing is kind of funny in an absurd manner.  I read an interview with Hesse, that is in the “October Files” series, where she mentioned that repetition in her work is - “Because it exaggerates. If something is meaningful, maybe it’s more meaningful said ten times. It’s not just an aesthetic choice. If something is absurd, it’s much more really exaggerated, absurd, if it’s repeated.” So, “Augment” works in that absurdity, but it is also a pleasure for the eye.  It relaxes me, and perhaps it the repetition of seeing the same object over and over again, that gives me such contentment.   “Augment” and “Aught” are separate works, but they are also a brother and sister or two sisters - nevertheless, it’s in the same family.  It was shown together only once in 1968, and this is the first time in 48 years that these two pieces have been rejoined, for this specific exhibition at Hauser, Wirth & Schimmel.  Artworks in a room tend to have a dialogue between themselves, and if you look, one can make connections between the two pieces.  “Aught” can mean ought, which suggests a sense of duty or responsibility.   “Augment” is making something greater, by adding to it.  So “Aught is four individual pieces hanging on the wall, and then finally on the ground you get 17 pieces which make up “Augment.” The visual and word pun is Duchampian in a sense, but it also plays with the concept that ‘more is better than less.’ 

As I mentioned, I’m often drawn to the Eva Hesse works in this exhibition, because it  suits my hungry eye, but also there is something provocative  and funny about these two works - and now that they are together, I feel a bit more of a whole person.  Perhaps, you will feel the same.