Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse’s work navigates the tensions of order and chaos, exploring the boundaries among mediums and between materials and ideas, the abstract and the concrete, the organic and artificial. While she is sometimes identified as a Post-Minimalist, her work defies easy categorization and reflects her openness to experimentation.

Hesse received her BFA from the School of Art and Architecture at Yale University and moved back to New York focusing her practice mostly on drawing, painting, and collage. During a few years in Düsseldorf, she grew familiar with abstract sculpture that dominated the German art scene and started her own sculptural practice using industrial materials such as latex and fiberglass. These works evidence a particular playful erotism that came to characterize her oeuvre. Hesse eschewed the frivolity of geometric minimalism, instead exploring emotions in her pieces and the way materials behaved and transformed.

When she returned to New York in 1966 and divorced her husband, Tom Doyle, she resumed her friendships with Sol LeWitt, Robert Smithson, and Mel Bochner, relationships that were mutually influential for their artistic paths. This same year, Hesse created Hang Up (1966), which she considered one of the most important works of her career: “It was the first time my idea of absurdity or extreme feeling came through.” The piece exemplifies her aim of creating “nothings,” while playing with empty spaces and the viewer’s perception of the artwork—an idea that became pivotal to her work.

Even though her career was short, her legacy of challenging materiality inspired the next generations of artists. Three years after her death, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presented a celebration of her career, Eva Hesse Retrospective: A Memorial Exhibition (1973).