Hannah Wilke – body and representation

Wilke began as a sculptor in a minimalist tradition. She used “low” materials, such as play-doh, chewing-gum, latex, or lint from tumble-driers. Her series of organically-shaped objects often associated to female genitalia, a motif she wanted to reclaim.

In the film ”Gestures”, Wilke uses her own face as her material. She kneads and pulls at the skin, sculpting it into grotesque grimaces and creating noises with her hands that imply violence, only to then subdue her expression into graceful and stereotypical “femininity”, resembling images from advertising or fashion.

Hannah Wilke and Marcel Duchamp

”Hannah Wilke Through The Large Glass” is one of Wilke’s most famous performances; a striptease seen through a key work by the French artist Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the film, she deftly disarms one of the most iconic pieces in art history, one that epitomises the cult of the male genius: Duchamp’s ”The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even” (1915–1923), also known as The Large Glass. This work exists in a small number of unique editions, two of which are in the Moderna Museet collection.

Marcel Duchamp was seminal in regenerating the very concept of art, especially with his readymades – everyday objects that are redefined as art by the context in which they are shown. “To honour Duchamp is to oppose him,” said Hannah Wilke.

You find the room in the Collection on floor 4