Hannah Wilke

I chose to do my presentation on Hannah Wilke for obvious reasons (last name, duh), but she proved to be a pretty interesting artist to research. She was a female conceptual artist that focused on female sexuality and the preconceptions that society has put on it. Through her art, she aimed to turn female sexuality into a commodity in order to get rid of the stigmas attached to it. By taking it out of a taboo context, she reclaims her sexuality as a female and makes it more relatable in a sense.

Hannah Wilke used vaginal imagery in the bulk of her artwork, creating vulvic (is that a word?) images out of materials such as clay, ceramic, lint, latex, chewing gum, chocolate, and her own body. A lot of her artwork is sculpture but she also did performance pieces where she photographed the performance.

Gestures is a popular piece of hers from 1974 where she faces the camera in extreme close-up and performs repetitive physical actions, kneading her face and pulling her skin as if it were sculptural material. Her gestures - rubbing her hands over her face and smiling so hard that she appears to be grimacing - can take on a loaded significance when seen in the context of gender performance.