Hannah Wilke
Hannah Wilke
selections from S.O.S. Starification Object Series, 1974
Biography
Born in New York in 1940, Hannah Wilke grew up in New York City and suburban Long Island, and received a B.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1962. By the middle 1960’s, she had begun making vaginally shaped sculptures, mostly in ceramic, that ranged from raw to elegant. Developing this imagery throughout her career as a feminist statement and also out of interest in its formal possibilities, she went on to explore similarly sensual abstract forms in latex wall sculptures of the 1970s. A pioneer of video and performance art, Wilke staged events in which her own body, often mostly or entirely unclothed, became the vehicle of some of her most radical provocations. Her mother’s illness with cancer, followed by her own, dramatically changed the direction of Wilke’s work, adding a disturbing and powerful dimension to her achievement. She died in 1993, at 52.
Using a wide range of unconventional media, including latex and chewing gum as well as photography and film, she paid tribute to predecessors like Marcel Duchamp with humorous irreverence. Her key concern was the body as instrument and object of visual expression.
Exhibitions
Oct 2023 – Feb 2024 Group Show Airspace
Mar 05 – Mar 08, 2020 Group Show The Armory Show 2020
Sep 18 – Nov 29, 2019 Hannah Wilke Force of Nature
Jun 11 – Aug 23, 2018 Group Show Reprise: Summer Show 2018
Hannah Wilke
Intra-Venus No. 1, 1992
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Hannah Wilke
Intra-Venus Series #6: February 19, 1992
from the "Intra-Venus" series
Hannah Wilke
Intra-Venus Series No. 10: June 22, 1992
from the "Intra-Venus" series
Hannah Wilke
Untitled, 1974
from "Needed Erase Her" series
Hannah Wilke
The intra-Venus Tapes, 2007
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Ronald Feldman Gallery has been at the frontier of contemporary art since 1971. The gallery is located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City and exhibits performance, photography, new media, film, painting, drawing and sculpture.
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