Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to present its first solo exhibition of the late American artist Hannah Wilke (1940–1993). The show will focus on Wilke’s drawings from the 1960’s and will also include a selection of ceramic sculptures from the 1970’s.
A pioneering figure in feminist art, Wilke explored issues of beauty, gender, and western cultural convention with a diverse approach that included photography, performance, video, sculpture and drawing. Wilke was one of the first artists to take control of the traditional male gaze and transform it into a means of celebration and liberation. In her multi-disciplinary practice, Wilke asserted ownership over her own body thereby associating herself with the women’s movement of the 1960’s. Poignant and arresting, Wilke’s work melded Post-Minimalism, second wave feminism and Abstract Expressionism making her one of the most influential yet under recognized artists of the late 20th century.
Wilke’s works on paper reveal a physicality that is often in dialogue with her sculpture. Rarely exhibited before her death in 1993, drawings were an integral part of her practice beginning in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Exuberant shapes and undulating lines meander between figurative forms and abstracted landscapes. Some works, such as Untitled, circa 1965 (pictured above), have a raw and visceral quality that evokes the immediacy and emotional intensity of Abstract Expressionism. Others are more linear in their depiction of her organic forms.
Hannah Wilke (b. New York, NY, 1940; d. Houston, TX, 1993) trained at Stella Elkins Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia. Key solo museum exhibitions during her life included Hannah Wilke: Starification Photographs and Videotapes, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California, Irvine, (1976); and Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective, University of Missouri (1989). Other solo presentations of her work have included Hannah Wilke: Gestures, Neuberger Museum of Art, New York (2008) and a solo gallery at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011). Wilke has also been included in significant group exhibitions, including: Performing for the Camera, Tate Modern, London (2016); Human Nature, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (2012); Naked Before the Camera, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, MoMA, New York, NY (2010); elles@centrepompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris, (2009-10): WACK!, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); and Sexual Politics, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 1996. Her work features in major museum and foundation collections including Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; LA County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Princeton University Art Museum; and Coleccion Jumex, Mexico City.