Eva Hesse [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Lucy R. Lippard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1976

As Lippard points out, Hesse’s use of obsessive repetition in her works served to increase and exaggerate the absurdity she saw in her life. In many ways, her works were ”psychic models,” as Robert Smithson has said, of ”a very interior person.” In pioneering the use of ”soft” materials, her sculptures betrayed her awareness of the manner in which her experience as a woman altered her art and career. Although she died before feminism affected the art world to any great extent, her major works have since become talismans for succeeding generations of women artists.Eva Hesse was designed by Hesse’s friends and colleagues Sol LeWitt and Pat Stier; her sculptures, drawings, and paintings are reproduced and discussed; and the text includes numerous quotations from her diaries. First published in 1976 but long out-of-print, this classic text is both an insightful critical analysis and a tribute to an artist whose genius has become increasingly apparent with the passage of time.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lucy Lippard is the author of a number of seminal works on contemporary art and artists, including Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory, A Different War: Vietnam in Art, and, most recently, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 249 pages
• Publisher: New York University Press (December 1, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814749712
• ISBN-13: 978-0814749715
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,385,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great document of crucial, endlessly fertile Hesse, November 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Eva Hesse (Paperback)

Featured are reproductions even of artworks which no longer exist, and Lippard's commentary is always to the point. I don't dwell on the fact that Eva Hesse died young -- in fact, I'm not interested in the cult of personality which in my view only obscures the works themselves. But in at least three directions Hesse has given me plenty to think about and purely enjoy, and this book documents everything... maybe it slights the drawings a bit, but there's another book out there with nothing but drawings, drawings galore. The implications of what Hesse accomplished remain "mindblowing." Anyone who has only heard about her or seen one or two works needs to see what they've missed.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful tribute to Groundbreaking Artist, December 25, 2002

By 

bookfan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eva Hesse (Paperback)

I have this book and I love it. You are given a glimpse of the New York art scene in the 1960's and get a feeling of what it must have been like during that exciting period. In fact, it's a little scary to imagine being around during that time, kind of overwhelming. Conceptual art, pop art, Andy Warhol, the whole psychedelic hippie scene. But oddly still a man's world, for all the miniskirts and 'free love' hype. Her contemporaries were pretty much all men, and the women tended to be more like sidekicks and dilettantes. (Not to take anything away from male artists, that's just the way it was at the time.) The end of Eva's marriage, to another artist, seems almost a given once she really started to come into her own right. It must have been kind of lonely, men were probably threatened by the idea of a female artist, or maybe it was just that she didn't have time to find the right person in her short life. Also, at the time there was much less awareness of toxicity in art materials both traditional and non-traditional. I have to admit I'm fascinated by the romance of this heroic figure producing art despite the cost to her personal life and health. I don't see her as a martyr but as a brave pioneer who left us with beautiful art. Many of Eva Hess's sculptures were made using ephemeral materials but this book has pictures of them when they were new. Even if the actual sculptures don't survive, the image of them will somehow continue to survive, maybe with the help of virutal reality technology? Anyway, thank you Lucy Lippard for this informative book packed with pictures and info about Eva!