Eva Hesse Drawing

New York, November 2005—Beginning May 6, 2006, The Drawing Center will present the major exhibition Eva Hesse Drawing, focusing on the critical role of drawing in the artistic achievement of Eva Hesse (1936-1970), one of the most influential American artists of the postwar era. The exhibition focuses on the crossover between drawing and sculpture in Hesse’s working process and features some of the artist’s finest drawings from each period of her mature phase, fascinating examples of very early drawings, and a small selection of sculptures. Eva Hesse Drawing is cocurated by Catherine de Zegher, Executive Director of The Drawing Center, and Elisabeth Sussman, Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Eva Hesse Drawing will provide an illuminating look at the artist’s creative process, influences, and the origins of her seminal works, as seen in her drawings. Drawing played a vital role in the constant evolution of style and idiom that characterize the artist’s oeuvre.

The exhibition will afford the rare opportunity to view 150 of Hesse’s works on paper, including 50 never-before-seen working notes and drawings related to specific works in process. Also on view will be her “reliefs” of 1965 and her experimental “test pieces” (interpreted as sketches in three dimensions). By juxtaposing Hesse’s drawings and sculptural works, the exhibition will trace the evolution of her work in a variety of materials and highlight her investigations into translating the drawn line from the page into three-dimensional space.

Eva Hesse Drawing is the first exhibition that has been devoted exclusively to Hesse’s drawings since the early 1980s. Hesse’s notations and drawings on loose sheets, as well as her notebooks and diaries, which she kept from the mid-1960s to the end of her life, have been loaned by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio. Works from this collection will be shown alongside major works on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, Tate London, Kröller-Müller Museum, Museum Wiesbaden, The Eva Hesse Estate, and significant private collections in the United States and Europe.

ABOUT THE ARTIST In her brief career, Hesse produced a copious number of drawings while working in a seemingly inexhaustible range of media, from watercolor and pencil to found objects and latex. Along with Richard Serra and Robert Morris, Hesse’s work has come to be associated with “process art” of the 1960s, in which the physical properties of materials and the process of working with them became central to the artist’s subject matter. Hesse’s practice of introducing sculptural materials into drawing and painting continues to influence the multidisciplinary work so prevalent in contemporary art practice.

PUBLICATION To accompany the exhibition, The Drawing Center will co-publish a full-color exhibition catalogue with Yale University Press. The catalogue will feature reproductions of all the works in the exhibition and essays by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Catherine de Zegher, Bracha L. Ettinger, Briony Fer, Mignon Nixon, Elisabeth Sussman, Kathryn A. Tuma, and Anne M. Wagner.

EXHIBITION TOUR Eva Hesse Drawing will travel to The Menil Collection, Houston (February 3 - April 23, 2006); The Drawing Center, New York (May 6 – July 15, 2006); and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (August 6 - October 23, 2006).

CREDITS Eva Hesse Drawing is organized by The Drawing Center, New York City and The Menil Collection, Houston. This exhibition is made possible by the Robert Lehman Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts.

Pressetext

Eva Hesse Drawing
Co-Kuratoren: Catherine de Zegher, Elisabeth Sussman

Stationen:
03.02.06 - 23.04.06 Menil Collection, Houston
06.05.06 - 15.07.06 The Drawing Center, New York
06.08.06 - 23.10.06 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles