Women in Art Double Feature: 'Eva Hesse' and '!Women Art Revolution'
Women have been making art since the dawn of time. But it wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th century that the art world began to recognize women artists as influential figures worthy of being displayed in museums alongside the likes of Rembrandt, Picasso, and Pollock. That’s largely thanks to the rise of the feminist art movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which shattered sexist barriers, challenged the status quo, and paved the way for women artists to start shaping the culture rather than being a footnote within it. This week, we’re thrilled to premiere two films that document this important period in time: Eva Hesse and !Women Art Revolution.
Of the many trailblazing women artists who emerged during the 1960s, Eva Hesse was indisputably one of the most daring. Her provocative, sexually charged, and form-defying sculptures broke all the rules and cemented her as one of the few women who dominated the New York art scene at the time. Marcie Begleiter’s documentary traces Hesse’s life story, from escaping Nazi Germany as a toddler to becoming one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Want to better understand how Hesse was able to break through institutional sexism and meet other groundbreaking women artists like her? Zoom out to view the movement that shook an industry historically dominated by men. !Women Art Revolution traces the origins and achievements of the feminist art movement over 40 years. An Official Selection at the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s documentary examines the feminist art movement within the context of larger historical events, from the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement to the Miss America Pageant, illustrating the inextricable link between art and politics.
Channel both your inner artist and your inner rebel and watch our Women in Art Double Feature—then check out a list of related titles on Kino Film Collection to keep the marathon going.
Eva Hesse (2016)
Eva Hesse, the first feature-length appreciation of her life and work, makes superb use of the artist’s voluminous journals, her correspondence with close friend and mentor Sol LeWitt, and contemporary as well as archival interviews with fellow artists (among them, Richard Serra, Robert Mangold, Dan Graham) who recall her passionate, ambitious, tenacious personality. Art critic Arthur Danto has written that her work is: “full of life, of eros, even of comedy… Each piece vibrates with originality and mischief.” The documentary captures these qualities, but also the psychic struggles of an artist who, in the downtown New York art scene of the 1960s, was one of the few women to make work that was taken seriously in a field dominated by male pop artists and minimalists.
!Women Art Revolution (2010)
An entertaining and revelatory "secret history" of Feminist Art, !Women Art Revolution deftly illuminates this under-explored movement through conversations, observations, archival footage and works of visionary artists, historians, curators and critics. Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women's art through the 1970s and explores how the tenacity and courage of these pioneering artists resulted in what is now widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.
Get to Know More Pioneering Women Artists:
Beyond the Visible — Hilma Af Klint (2019)
The subject of a 2018 awe-inspiring retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Hilma af Klint was an abstract artist before the term even existed. This course-correcting documentary describes not only the life and craft of af Klint, but also the process of her mischaracterization and erasure by both a patriarchal narrative of artistic progress and capitalistic determination of artistic value.
Call Her Applebroog (2016)
This deeply personal portrait of acclaimed New York–based artist Ida Applebroog was shot with mischievous reverence by her filmmaker daughter, Beth B (Exposed). Born in the Bronx to Orthodox Jewish émigrés from Poland, Applebroog looks back at how she expressed herself through decades of drawings and paintings, as well as her private journals.
Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over (2021)
Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over by Beth B is the first career-spanning retrospective of Lydia Lunch’s confrontational, acerbic and electric artistry. As New York City’s preeminent No Wave icon from the late 70’s, Lunch has forged a lifetime of music and spoken word performance devoted to the utter right of any woman to indulge, seek pleasure, and to raise voice in a rage as loud as any man.
The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (2011)
This tender portrait of music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and their partner, dominatrix Lady Jaye, was filmed over the course of seven years and completed following Lady Jaye’s sudden death in 2007. Integrating home movies, stylishly staged tableaux, and archival footage, this documentary poignantly centers on the body modification that brought the couple together.
Everybody Knows Elizabeth Murray (2016)
An intimate portrait of the groundbreaking artist Elizabeth Murray, this documentary explores the relationship between Murray’s family life and career as well as her place in 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.