Eva Hesse

Style: Post Minimalism; Op Art;

Place: Hamburg

Born: 1936

Death: 1970

Biography:

Eva Hesse consisted of abstract drawings and paintings. She is most well known for her sculptures and because of this, her drawings are often regarded as preliminary steps to her later work. She created her drawings as a separate body of work. She states, "They were related because they were mine but they weren’t related in one completing the other."
Hesse’s interest in latex as a medium for sculptural forms had to do with immediacy. Keats states, "immediacy may be one of the prime reasons Hesse was attracted to latex". Hesse’s first two works using latex, Schema and Sequel (1967–68) use latex in a way never imagined by the manufacturer. "Industrial latex was meant for casting. Hesse handled it like house paint, brushing layer upon layer to build up a surface that was smooth yet irregular, ragged at the edges like deckled paper."
Hesse's work often employs multiple forms of similar shape organized together in grid structures or clusters. Retaining some of the defining forms of minimalism, modularity, and unconventional materials, she created eccentric work that was repetitive and labor-intensive. In a statement of her work, Hesse describes her piece titled Hang-Up, "It was the first time my idea of absurdity or extreme feeling came through...The whole thing is absolutely rigid, neat cord around the entire thing . . . It is extreme and that is why I like it and don't like it . . . It is the most ridiculous structure that I ever made and that is why it is really good".

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