Eva Hesse, Kettwig Studio, 1964
One of America’s foremost postwar artists, Eva Hesse helped establish the post-minimalist movement with pioneering sculptures made with latex, fiberglass, and plastics. This first feature-length tribute to her life and work makes superb use of the artist’s voluminous journals, her correspondence with close friend and mentor Sol LeWitt, and interviews with such fellow artists as Richard Serra, Robert Mangold, Nancy Holt, and Dan Graham, who recall her passion, ambition, and tenacity. The documentary captures these qualities, while also exploring the struggles of an artist who, in the downtown New York art scene of the 1960s, was one of the few women to make work taken seriously in a field dominated by male pop artists and minimalists. Directed by Marcie Begleiter. USA/Germany, 2016, 108 minutes.
Filmmakers Marcie Begleiter and Karen Shapiro will be in attendance and will speak following the film with Kirsten Swenson, Assistant Professor of Art History at University of Massachusetts, Lowell.