Listening to Eva Hesse speak on her own work felt just as freeing as looking at the work itself. In my opinion, when viewing Hesse’s work one isn’t looking at single object or creation, they are viewing something that lives in a space greater than the sum of its own parts. The work of Hesse is a challenge of formal complexity and personal feeling, both of these things amalgamating into a new kind of sensation.
Specifically in the case of her piece “Hang Up” the relationships and contradictions conjured are seemingly endless. It is reductive in its grayscale and geometry while indulgent in its size and whimsical cording. Darby English remarks that it is no more a sculptural painting than it is a painted sculpture. “Hang Up’ exists somewhere beyond. It engages in a delicate interaction between viewer and floor. The work shares the room with you, and engages the room itself while remaining technically imageless. It lives in a space similar to dreams as it thrives in your imagination and falls flat when forced out with a verbal explanation. Anyone looking at “Hang Up” can feel the reach of its fastened rod as it pulls toward you and stretches to the floor, it seems hilarious but it is difficult to say why. The piece is a system of art gestures that presents nothing at all, appearing to us in complete absurdity with its empty frame.
Hi Peyton,
ReplyDeleteThis is a lovely review, I think you successfully conveyed your understanding of Eva Hesse’s work, especially the piece “Hang Up”. Although the piece embodies a blank canvas, the scale and the extended cord definitely established space for it to become a sculpture that engages with the audiences. For the same reason as you described, I enjoy looking at ambiguous or “absurd” pieces; as they force people to think deeply about the decisions made by the artist. Why wasn’t the cord placed diagonally? What would it look like if the canvas has been hanged up? Would the cord become part of the painting? And what would the missing piece in the frame be like? Many questions like such could be asked—and at some point, the free association becomes introspection by the viewer. I believe that’s how an artwork makes connections with the person in front of it.
You described Molesworth’s Hang Up in a dynamic way, which made me felt as though I was also in the museum (or listening to the podcast) at the same time. It helped someone who was not fully aware of sculptural pieces curious about the artwork, a desire to see it in person. The words “absurdity” and ridiculous” added onto the personality of the artist and interviewer, which guides the readers to view the artwork through their own perspective, in a subjective yet informative way.
ReplyDeleteIn the first paragraph, I would prefer to avoid using the first-person view as the review felt detached between both paragraphs.