Forms Larger and Bolder: EVA HESSE DRAWINGS

“Crazy like machine forms larger and bolder.” This is how Eva Hesse described a group of finished drawings in 1965 in a letter to her artist friend Sol LeWitt. The idea of “bold forms” can be applied to the artist’s entire oeuvre of drawings, to which mumok is devoting this exhibition. On view is a selection of works on paper from the comprehensive collection at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, Ohio, which also houses Hesse’s archive. From early figurative studies to abstract and expressive “doodles” and suggestive and erotic diagrams to preliminary sketches for sculptures, this representative overview shows the special role drawing played in Hesse’s artistic practice. The line, for example, is not used just as sign or marker in Hesse’s works on paper, but also as a thread or a wire, knotted and woven, in the artist’s well-known post-minimalist sculptures.   

This exhibition is organized by the Estate of Eva Hesse and Hauser & Wirth in collaboration with the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College