| Returning to New York in 1965, Hesse took her
experiments with reliefs to new extremes before focussing on
free-standing sculpture. She considered Hang Up (1966)
to be her 'most important early statement'. A great loop of
wire, protruding from the empty frame, swerves out towards the
viewer, as if trying to scoop up the space in front of it. The
absurdity of this pictureless picture is further enhanced by
the obsessive bandaging of the frame and wire with cloth. Hesse
described it as 'the most ridiculous structure that I ever made
and that is why it is really good. It has a kind of depth I
don't always achieve and that is the kind of depth or soul or
absurdity or life or meaning or feeling or intellect that I
want to get.'
Hesse knew many
of the artists associated with Minimal and Conceptual art,
such as Sol LeWitt, Robert Smithson and Mel Bochner. At the
same time, she was absorbed by Surrealism, sharing its fascination
with psychoanalysis and sexuality. Her fetishistic, sexually-suggestive
shapes bound tightly with cord echo the works of Surrealist
artists Hans Bellmer and Man Ray. Untitled or Not Yet
(1966), shows Hesse experimenting with new materials, and
with ideas associated with gravitational pull and concealment. |
