Sunday 7 March, 3.00 – 4.00pm
Jenni Lomax, Director of Camden Art Centre, led a tour of the exhibitions on their final day.
The German-born, American artist Eva Hesse (1936-1970) played a central role in the radical transformation of sculptural practice in the 1960s, using unconventional materials to create expressive works suggestive of the body and emotions
Throughout her career, Hesse produced a large number of small, experimental works alongside her large-scale sculpture. These objects, so-called test pieces, were made in a wide range of materials, including latex, wire-mesh, sculp-metal, wax and cheesecloth. Left in her studio at the time of her death, sold or given to friends during her lifetime, these objects evade easy definition, seen variously as experiments, little pieces, moulds, tests or finished pieces.
In her recent research on Hesse’s work, Briony Fer collectively renamed these objects as studioworks, proposing that their precarious nature places them at the heart of Hesse’s work and questions traditional notions of what sculpture is.
This exhibition bought together around fifty works drawn from major public and private collections around the world, showing works which are extremely fragile and rarely travel. The exhibition and the accompanying major publication offer a timely new interpretation of Hesse’s historical position, as well as highlighting her relevance for contemporary art now.
Eva Hesse: Studiowork was the result of new research by renowned Hesse scholar Professor Briony Fer and is curated by Fer and Barry Rosen, Director of The Estate of Eva Hesse.