KATHERINE BRADFORD’S HEADS ARE ABSURD :-)

Words: Emily Nam [New York City]

Katherine Bradford [1942] is a New York-based painter. Her paintings are vibrant, eclectic and multidimensional in their visual and psychological experience. Bradford depicts human activities amongst a colloquial landscape, embedded with humor and thrilling adventures — the dimensions that these works permeate is vast. I’m compelled by Bradford’s work for its plastic and color-full nature. I am particularly interested in the portrayal of Bradford’s heads, which evidently I have discovered are absurd.

Bradford recently shared an image on her instagram - her Father, with a young Katherine perched on his lap. The resemblance in these elongated ellipses, of Bradford’s head (now) and of her late Father’s, is indicative of the relationship that heads impose on our understanding of self, through relational identity. We live in a world where racism, identity and how we look physically or dress, can have a large impact on the experience that we have, amongst embedded social structures. In a perplexing way, Bradford creates room for a new form of identity that is playful and makes obsolete any preconceived ideas about the human form.

 Katherine Bradford, Mother Carry, 2022, 68 × 80 in (172.72 × 203.20 cm) Acrylic on canvas [Image: Canada]

Bradford claims that she does not paint from observation — “My human beings are closely related to the paint they’re made of. And they’re invented. I guess you can tell that because I take liberty with their anatomy. [Katherine Bradford c/o Canada]”. While not depicting expected human anatomy, it feels that these heads are in part, a reflection of the pulsating psyche that is embedded in our human experience — and we are gently being asked to explore.

After viewing Bradford’s New York exhibition at Canada, Arms at Sea (2023), I was engrossed in the heads on figures that Bradford presented. A head - typically separated from the rest of the body by a neck, and containing the brain, mouth, and sense organs - seemed to exist in her works and at the same time was not apparent at all. Mother Carry (2022) represents an immense amount of joy in the facial features of the central figure, which I identify by two circles for eyes and a banana shaped mouth — a feeling of freedom is imbued, while the mother, who I assume is being carried, holds a sense of unease, “Will they drop me? She cries”. Adjacent is a head that is pressed up against the maternal torso, expressing a deep love and care for the body that it is holding. It is clear these figures, each with their own perplexing and likely developmental roles amongst their siblings, are together carrying their mother and they love her. 

I am evidently projecting my own point of view and experience on these works, but I believe this is what makes Bradford’s heads accessible to the viewer. It is impossible to not like them, question them and shake in a space of uncertainty of what am I actually looking at.

La Danse inachevée (‘The Uncompleted Dance’) Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris Image: Emily Nam

In anticipation for the 2024 Paris Olympics, Cultural Olympiad is a collection of works at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, France (on view to August 25, 2024). Meandering from the monumental triptych by Matisse, La Danse inachevée (1930-1933) [This is a preparatory work, a first version, for The Dance (1933), housed at the Barnes Foundation, where it is installed within the three arches of the main gallery in Philadelphia] — the participant is guided down the stairs into the main galleries, where Bradford’s triptych, The Athletes (2022) is vibrantly apparent and visible. The Athletes (2022) depicts interlinked characters related in their pressure and action around balls, a bag and some heads. The dialogue with the larger than life Matisse silhouettes, is a clever curatorial juxtaposition, with the similarity of movement between a community of figures in Bradford’s modern day encounter. 

There is an ambiguity in the nature of this ball sport, that is being played and its alignment with the movement and motion of these circular head-like shapes. I locate; 2 ears, 2 noses, 2 mouths, 2 eyes, 10 spherical forms (6 of which can be argued are connected to a neck-like structure), 5 figurative forms and a Prada handbag. Each moment, imposes a pressure on the next (left to right through the image). Push over, up and down - hands enforcing, arms holding up and elbows in motion. Each movement actions a pathway through a group of connected bodies, which appear to be standing on a pregnant rock form, oscillating deep in space. In fact, maybe theses are not basketballs (which I assumed them to be, Bradford is an American), but the many moons of Jupiter, a planet discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610.

The Athletes, 2022 - Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, France [Image: Emily Nam]

A recent fundraising collaboration, between Magic Breky and Counter Editions, curated by art talker/collector/UK based-actor Russell Tovey - includes a suite of prints by five leading international artists, this includes; Katherine Bradford, Jordan Casteel, Ulala Imi, Francesca Mollet and Nicolas Party. Each artist has created a signed, limited edition print and one-third of profits are extended to the charity organization Magic Breakfast, who are humbly feeding the many young heads of underprivileged school children in England and Scotland, combating early morning hunger and ensuring children are fueled to learn. Bradford’s contribution to this curation, titled Person with Colors is an enigmatic figure hovering within and in front of a striped, multi-color curtain. Bradford appears to have a keen interest of placing figures in outer space (Fathers, 2013-2016 comes to mind) and I cannot help assume that this figure is standing on a purple planet and a vibrant sea of Pride colors, are beaming across the galaxy. An ephemeral feeling is experienced as Bradford’s non-gendered body shimmers. What about the head? Is there one and which way is it looking, if not at us? On close investigation, the sweet pink wishbone shaped form could be interpreted as a head and shoulder encapsulating a torso, that is faceless - in reality, it is a conglomerate of fleshy brush strokes connected to two dangling purple/orange arms.

Katherine Bradford, Person with Colors (2024) [Image: Counter Editions]

From my own life experience I have resolved that the illogical moments of life, are where we have the space to question those parts of ourselves that feel vulnerable and in turn discover something new about our own existence. Can Bradford’s peculiar heads, alleviate our suffering with identity through the ambiguous and reflective nature of how these shapes are described? A plethora of emotions reverberate from Bradford’s visual works and it is through these abstracted identities, that we are being given an opportunity to take a look at, head on, what is inside.

EVA HESSE: WHERE CAN SHE TAKE US?

Words: Emily Nam [New York City]

As I progressed through the Modern art collection at the Centre Pompidou on a recent visit to Paris — I found myself standing/moving/oscillating around a druid-circled grouping of translucent leg and feet-like, alien-like forms by the late American sculptor Eva Hesse [No title, 1970, Resin and fiberglass, polyethylene, aluminum wires]. It has been rare for me to view Hesse’s works in person and I can only recall, being with Repetition Nineteen III (1968) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Eva Hesse, Sans titre, 1970 Image: Emily Nam (2024, Centre Pompidou)

Eva Hesse [1936-1970] is known for her pioneering work in unconventional materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastic and was a leader of the post-minimalist art movement. Her works are playful, humorous, commanding, and intimate. This work [No title,1970] is one of the last and was made by assistants, while Hesse was in hospital. Hesse was diagnosed with a brain tumor and after three failed operations, passed away on May 29, 1970 at 34 years of age in New York City.

I paused, watched as the light passed through the fragile and murky structures that stretch into the sky. At that moment, I was unaware I would be embarking on an Eva Hesse immersion; I am currently reading her personal diaries ‘Eva Hesse: Diaries, by Eva Hesse and Tamara Bloomberg’ and a grouping of her iconic works is now on view, in an out-of-the-ordinary exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the galleries representation of the Eva Hesse estate.

Eva Hesse was born on January 11, 1936 in Hamburg, Germany to Orthodox Jewish parents. In 1938, at 2 years old, Hesse and her older sister, Helen, were sent on one of the last Kindertransports to leave Nazi Germany. In 1939, Eva’s parents escaped Germany and reunited with their daughters in England. The only remaining of her extended family, together they boarded a ship to New York City and settled in Washington Heights. Subsequently, her parents divorced and a year later in 1946, Hesse’s mother takes her own life, shortly before Eva’s 10th birthday.

Eva’s progression into art making was fused by studies at the Pratt Institute and The Art Students League — while interning at Seventeen magazine, where a color-illustrated article about the young artist was published.  In 1959, she completed studies at the Yale School of Art and Architecture, where she would engage in painting studies with wonder, under the guidance of Josef Albers and Rico Lebrun. Hesse then returned to New York City and fostered a connection with her milieu; Sol LeWitt, Mel Bochner, Lucy Lippard, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack, Robert Ryman, Mike Todd, Paul Thek and Yayoi Kusama et al. The sentiment is that Eva was supported and deeply cared for by her peers, encapsulated in the experience of Eva Hesse. 

Eva Hesse in her studio Image: Hermann Landshoff (1968)

In June 1964, Hesse and her then husband, artist Tom Doyle travelled to Germany, where Doyle was invited by the industrialist Friedrich Arnhard Scheidt to work for a year in preparation for an exhibition.  The climate of the marriage was uneasy and while Eva was merely accompanying Doyle, she was provided with materials and a studio space in a disused part of a textile factory — it would mark one of the the most significant phases in her artistic career. This accessibility to a cacophony of discarded materials, stimulated the transition to making three-dimensional works. During this time she made her first sculpture, the iconic relief Ringaround Arosie [1965, Museum of Modern Art], paying tribute to Hesse's friend Rosalyn Goldman and the children’s nursery rhyme. During this period, away from New York is when the notable exchange with close friend Sol Lewitt occurred. In response to Hesse’s grappling with her artistic identity and bemoaning she didn’t know what she was doing — Lewitt proclaims in a letter to Eva, “Just Do!”

[Google “Sol Lewitt letter to Eva Hesse”, it is a potent letter written for any artist or creative person].

The prevailing minimalist movement favored manufactured and hard edged aesthetics. Hesse’s use of unconventional materials was a brave statement, especially for a woman during the 1960s in America — a period when the women’s movement and the sexual revolution were emerging as commanding and liberating forces. Upon returning to New York, she lived and worked at 134 Bowery. This was the time that fiberglass, latex and industrial plastics opened new possibilities in art making for Hesse and the material and corporeality of its structures, offered Hesse a dialogue with making. This sublime interaction enabled her to express herself completely.  Between 1965 to Eva’s death [1970]; Repetition Nineteen I (1967), Aught (1968), Augment (1968), Area (1968) and Expanded Expansion (1969) are composed. 

Expanded Expansion (1969) Image: Emily Nam (2024, Hauser and Wirth)

“I want to write them a letter and say it is not going to last” - Eva Hesse [1970]

Hesse was aware of the fragility of the materials that she was working with; rubber, latex, cheesecloth. It is a testament and due to the care of a community of people who are committed to preserving the legacy of Eva Hesse, that we have the privilege to view works that were constructed over 50 years ago, in their aged and discolored state. It is the second time in 35 years that Expanded Expansion (1969) - juxtaposed soft, draping panels of rubberized cheesecloth with rigid fiberglass and polyester resin poles - has been on public view. The other was in 2022, after the collaboration of an advisory team (including Lena Stringari, Deputy Director and Andrew W. Mellon Chief Conservator, and Esther Chao, Objects Conservator at the Guggenheim Museum) worked to undertake a complex conservation treatment to reinvigorate this work.

After encountering the exhibition at Hauser & Wirth this past week, I decided to walk with my thoughts from Chelsea. I found myself footsteps behind an older woman and her dog, meandering through the East Village — who I later discovered to be Joan Jonas, an American visual artist and pioneer in the performance art movement of the late 1960s. One of the many women, who has forged her own path with grit and bravery. Her presence solidified one of those rare serendipitous New York moments that shine in a different hue, a sense that someone is trying to scream at me to “pay attention”. As a woman, I am grateful to have the presence of these women in my sphere who have forged paths before me. It is their spirit and fearless gusto for life that holds me in those waving moments of uncertainty, as I continue to step into my own unique and unnerving future.

As an artist, in search of a mystified connection with my practice and the extraction of ‘What is my commitment as an Artist?’, I am reliant on Eva’s cheer. The magnetic pull of the art world is heaving and Eva has given me permission to remain steadfast and “go beyond what I know and what I can know” [Eva Hesse, 1968]. Eva’s impact has spanned generations. In 1992, ‘Hesse: A Retrospective’, one of the first in-depth exhibitions of Hesse’s works, was presented at the Yale University Art Gallery [organized by Helen Cooper, curator of American paintings and sculpture].  Cooper has spoken about the moving impact this exhibition had on a younger generation of artists at that time. One artist I admire most, the late Phyllida Barlow [1944-2023] has herself made comment on the significance of Hesse’s works, to her practice. This present moment is an opportunity to experience Hesse’s evocation and she remains an important precedent for generations to follow.

In an interview with Cindy Nemser for Artforum [1970], Hesse states ‘Life doesn’t last; art doesn’t last.’ Hesse’s work is still alive. Be receptive to what Eva Hesse has to shake within you.

Until July 26 2024, ‘Eva Hesse, 5 Sculptures’ is on view, free to the public, at Hauser & Wirth 22nd St, New York — organized by Hesse estate adviser Barry Rosen, with art historian and critic Briony Fer.

Further Reading