Eva Hesse
One More than One
29 November 2013–2 March 2014
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Glockengiesserwall
20095 Hamburg
Germany
Eva Hesse (1936–1970) was one of the foremost women artists of the 20th century. In the mid-1960s she began experimenting with new materials that had never before been used to produce art objects; these included polyester, fibreglass and latex. Hesse’s highly distinctive sculptures, which are now included in the collections of major international museums, combine multiple—and also opposing—qualities such as hard and soft, fragile and substantial, abstract and evocative.
While their seriality and reduction show the influence of the emerging Minimal Art movement, her sculptures and drawings are uniquely charged with sensuous materiality and physicality. Eva Hesse. One More than One is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in her native city, which she was forced to leave in 1938. Her family was Jewish, and in 1939 they emigrated via the Netherlands and England to New York. In the 1950s Eva Hesse studied painting at the Cooper Union School and also at Yale School of Art and Architecture. The exhibition focuses on sculptures and drawings from the latter part of her short career—the highly productive phase from 1966 until her early death in 1970. Featuring numerous loans from major international museums and private collections, it provides an extremely rare opportunity to view Eva Hesse’s late works, some of which are being shown in Germany for the very first time.
Concurrently with Eva Hesse. One More than One, the exhibition Gego. Line as Object is being presented in the Hamburger Kunsthalle. For the first time, works by these two internationally renowned artists are being presented in dialogue in Hamburg, the city of their birth. Each in their own way, Eva Hesse and Gego, whose real name was Gertrud Goldschmidt (1912, Hamburg–1994, Caracas), were pioneers of spatial installation and also in the use of non-traditional materials in the context of art.
Curators: Dr. Brigitte Kölle and Dr. Petra Roettig
*Eva Hesse in her Bowery studio, circa 1967. Photo: Herman Landshoff. © Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Fotografie, Archiv Landshoff. © The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.
