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FROM TOP: INSTALLATION VIEW, “9 AT LEO CASTELLI,” LEO CASTELLI, NEW YORK, 1968, THE ESTATE OF EVA HESSE, AND HAUSER & WIRTH; JACKIE WINSOR AND PAULA COOPER GALLERY, NEW YORK
BLOUINARTINFO.COM | MARCH 2016 ART+AUCTIONThis is the first time Hesse’s Aught
and Augment, both 1968, are being
shown together since they were exhibited
in “9 at Leo Castelli,” organized by
sculptor Robert Morris at the dealer’s
uptown warehouse in 1968. Hesse was
the only woman in that seminal show,
which was among the earliest exhibitions
to define post-Minimalism, with its
unstructured approach to new materials.
One of these bas-relief works is wall
mounted, and the other is laid out on the
floor. They deal very clearly with the
relationship between painting and sculp-
ture, the effects of weight and gravity,
and the relationship between the object
and the base. The layering of the beauti-
fully toned latex and canvas sheets in
Augment, which represents skin, combined
with the subtlety of the four-paneled
wall work Aught, which has a skeletal
armature, provides a kind of undulating
surface that references abstraction and
the body in the most elemental way. —PSOne of the real privileges of doing a
major revisionist group exhibition
is engaging with artists who have had
a significant impact on the history of
art but have never really been recog-
nized outside artistic circles. Winsor is
one of these remarkable artists. The
seriality of Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd
had an impact on her, but she was
also very much drawing upon the land-
scape and her own history in Nova
Scotia. With 30 to 1 Bound Trees,
1971–72/2016, she took 30 white birch
saplings and used heavy rope, which
became a signature of her work, to
bind them together into one. The title
reveals the structure of the work,
which references the artist’s upbring-
ing in Nova Scotia and her family
history. Her early works used natural
materials to address primary forms
and structures—there are squares,
triangles, and in this case a remake of
the classic column, which comes out of
the history of art but is made with
materials that are organic rather than
monumental and institutional. —PSJACKIE
WINSOR
EVA
HESSE