“…a series of small sculptures by Eva Hesse
that are essentially fragments rescued from her studio. They are fragile and
diaphanous in substance, almost anti-sculptures.
A year before her death, in
1969, Hesse wrote of her desire “to get to non-art, non-connotive,
non-anthropomorphic, non-geometric, non-nothing; everything… It’s not the new,
it is what is yet not known, thought, seen, touched; but really what is not and
that is.” Though not quite there, or not quite anything, the works,
nonetheless, feel significant and demanding. As Leslie Camhi wrote for the New
York Times blog, though the work in the exhibition seem closer to prototypes to
autonomous works of art, they are compelling in revealing those familiarly
Hesse-ian themes: “plasticity, an engagement with ephemeral materials, the
elusive and incomplete nature of memory, and a redolent corporeality.”
via
pale and
artobserved.
The notion of "peeling back", of taking away in order to expose, of getting to the essence and attempting to reveal the essence alone, asks for an ongoing exploration. It is also what very much draws me to Eva Hesse's work. Beauty of the object becomes consequential. I really love these pieces..
