From Library Journal
The current trend toward having a number of experts write separate essays to accompany the illustrations in an exhibition catalog sacrifices coherency for in-depth analysis of disparate facets of an artist's life or work. This book is a perfect example. This beautifully illustrated catalog of the work of the most exciting female sculptor of the 1960s accompanies a major exhibition this spring at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is packed with 22 short essays, six long essays, and a roundtable discussion, all supported by a bibliography and an exhibition history. In her career, tragically cut short by a brain tumor, Hesse (1936-70) produced an extraordinary group of abstract sculptures of resin, latex, and fiber. A second tragedy looms as these unstable materials degrade and the artworks change color and lose their form. This work complements Lucy Lippard's biography of her contemporary and friend, Eva Hesse; Bill Barrette's catalog of Hesse's three-dimensional work, Eva Hesse: Sculpture; Catalogue Raisonn‚; and Helen Cooper's 1992 Eva Hesse: A Retrospective, which is a less complex analysis than the book in hand. Clearly, the time is ripe for a coherent life of Hesse with an assessment of her work and a catalog of both her well-known sculptures and her lesser-known paintings and drawings. In the meantime, this excellent work will fill the gap. Recommended for art collections and academic libraries. David McClelland, Philadelphia
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
Although Hesse's revolutionary and enduringly influential sculptures--elegantly fluid abstractions made of latex, rope, and fiberglass that wed the organic with the industrial, the kinetic with the frozen--are always included in modern art surveys, this is the first comprehensive critical study and catalog of her work. Curator Sussman has assembled a strong cast of her peers to discuss various aspects of Hesse's daring oeuvre, from her high-voltage drawings to her use of unconventional materials, "love of line and collapsing form," and self-described "weird humor." Biographical observations are kept succinct, but there's no escaping the poignancy of Hesse's short and "extreme" life. Born in Hamburg in 1936, she fled the Holocaust as a child; her divorced mother committed suicide; her own marriage was unhappy; and she died of cancer at age 34. But her devotion to art was fierce, her talent precocious, and she accomplished in her last five feverish years what others couldn't achieve in decades. Unfortunately, her experimental sculptures are deteriorating, a loss that makes this gorgeously illustrated volume all the more precious. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
