Eva Hesse Portrait of a Ground-breaking Artist
The first feature-length appreciation of the life and work of Eva Hesse, one of America's foremost postwar artists.
Her pioneering sculptures, using latex, fiberglass, and plastics, helped establish the post-minimalist movement. Dying of a brain tumor at age 34, she had a mere decade-long career that is dense with complex, intriguing works that defy easy categorization.
"A vibrant, affecting piece of filmmaking that's sure to widen Hesse's following." - Sheri Linden, The Los Angeles Times
"Hesse's work has taken its place as a seminal part of 20th-century art, and this indispensable film will be shining a light on it, and her, for a long time to come." - Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
Running Time
109 mins
Year
2016
Kanopy ID
4910489
Filmmakers
Features
Languages
Subjects
Show More
Related videos
Everybody Knows... Elizabeth Murray - The Life of a Great Contemporary Painter
This intimate portrait of the groundbreaking artist Elizabeth Murray explores the relationship between Murray's family life and career and reconsiders her place in the contemporary art history.
Murray's personal journals, voiced in the film by Meryl Streep, give viewers a privileged window into Murray's internal struggles and incredible ambition. Verite…
Call Her Applebroog - The Life and Work of American Painter Ida Applebroog
A deeply personal portrait of acclaimed New York-based artist, Ida Applebroog. Now in her 80s, she looks back at how she expressed herself through decades of drawings, paintings and journals; and how she found psychological and sexual liberation through art.
"Beth B achieves a vivid snapshot of a still-vital artist…
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 - A Portrait of an Artist Coping with Mental Illness
The 2018 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short Subject is an extraordinary portrait of artist Mindy Alper, whose astonishing body of work - drawings and sculptures of powerful psychological clarity - reveals a lifetime of struggle with debilitating mental illness.
Winner of Best Best Documentary Short Subject at the…
Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back - Profile of a Subversive Artist
An art-world provocateur and elusive artist Maurizio Cattelan made his career on playful and subversive works that up-ended the art establishment, until a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2011 finally solidified his place in the contemporary art canon. Axelrod's equally playful profile leaves no stone unturned in trying to figure…
Two Artists: Andrea Zittel and Monika Sosnowska 1:1
The exhibition 1:1 is dedicated to the artists Monika Sosnowska (lives and works in Warsaw, Poland) and Andrea Zittel (lives and works in California and New
York). It consists of a group of nine sculptures by Monika Sosnowska, some of which are monumental, and a comprehensive survey of the diverse…
Beuys - The Life and Work of a Innovative Artist Joseph Beuys
Thirty years after his death, Joseph Beuys still feels like a visionary and is widely considered one of the most influential artists of his generation. Known for his contributions to the Fluxus movement and his work across diverse media -- from happening and performance to sculpture, installation, and graphic art…
Seed Corn Should Not be Ground - A Portrait of a German Sculptor and Graphic Artist
At 47, German sculptor and graphic artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) lost her beloved son Peter in WWI. She began to process her grief in drawings and sculptures, including the famous memorial The Grieving Parents, and became increasingly active in protesting social injustice.
She often used the Goethe quotation "Seed corn…
An Art That Nature Makes - The Work of Artist Rosamond Purcell
Finding unexpected beauty in the discarded and decayed, photographer Rosamond Purcell has developed an oeuvre of work that has garnered international acclaim, graced the pages of National Geographic and over 20 published books, and has enlisted admirers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Errol Morris and Stephen Jay Gould.
AN ART…
Robert Motherwell: Summer of 1971 - The Art and Influence of an American Artist
At work on his Elegies and Windows series, Motherwell examines his place in the Abstract Expressionist movement, which he calls the first original American movement in the "mainstream," and its practitioners "the last romantics." He distinguishes between his large paintings and his intimate papier colle.
Motherwell recollects the state of…
Jasper Johns: Decoy - An Artist Re-imagines his Past Work
Jasper Johns's Decoy is rooted inside the notions of reproduction, transformation and memory. Believing that an image gains new meaning each time it is presented, Johns boldly confronts his own past work, most notably Ale Cans (1964), and uses Decoy as a method of metamorphosis.
The repetition of certain motifs…
Mirrors to Windows: The Artist as Woman
A unique film following an international cast of three generations of women artists from Cairo, France, Germany, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom who are forging their careers in the London art scene.
The film takes you on an intimate but fast-paced journey, moving the lens between art…
Agnes Martin - Before the Grid - The Life & Work of an Abstract Expressionist Painter
Agnes Martin is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Before she died in 2004 at the age of ninety-two, her paintings sold for millions of dollars and were displayed in the world's greatest museums.
Through interviews with friends, lovers and classmates who knew her well, insight…
Comments (2)
I was a sculpture major in an Art college in the 70's & chose Eve Hesse to do an in depth study as well as make some large pieces of sculpture that were directly influenced & inspired from her works.
I accidentally found this film playing on my local PBS station one day as I was ...Read more
I was a sculpture major in an Art college in the 70's & chose Eve Hesse to do an in depth study as well as make some large pieces of sculpture that were directly influenced & inspired from her works.
Read lessI accidentally found this film playing on my local PBS station one day as I was scrolling through the channels looking for something that caught my interest. I was so excited to find this film.
It was so sad that her life was so sadly taken.
She produced so many thought provoking bodies of work in such a short amount of time.
Thank you for offering this film.
Film and artist to learn more about, and admire