riot grrrl of the week: HANNAH WILKE

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Hannah Wilke by Evelyne Zapata
Self Portraiture; self-preservation and sensuality. These terms are all relevant to the well-known feminist Hannah Wilke’s art work. Throughout her short life, she presented herself in several settings all with one thing in common - they represent a sense of preservation for her and women in general. “Wilke used the various mediums of photography, performance, sculpture, and video to examine and challenge prevailing notions of femininity, feminism, and sexuality” (Guggenheim).

“Hannah Wilke was an influential second-generation feminist artist whose work in sculpture and performance art challenged gender stereotypes and probed the relationship between aesthetics, eroticism, and politics. Wilke began her career as a sculptor, creating pieces in clay and terracotta that evoke both organic forms and female genitalia, a symbol of women’s empowerment in the 1970s” (Princeton Art Museum).

One of the earliest works that Wilke made was when she was in her early thirties. It was titled S.O.S. Starification Object Series. The photograph from the series that I will discuss was a medium gelatin print made in 1975. In this piece, Wilke is gazing directly at the viewer. She is posed seductively in front of the camera, which is at eye level with the photographer and the viewer. She confronts the audience with her sexuality and her social commentary. This piece was made to comment on the male gaze and female stereotypes. She was one of the first artists to use vaginal imagery in her work with the purpose of directly engaging with feminist issues. This is an example of what she coined ‘Performalist Self-Portraitist.’ This was used describe photographic work she created and directed others to photograph along with her sister and father behind the camera. Her character embraces sensuality at the same time that it mocks male desire and satirizes gender stereotypes. In order to take these photographs:
“She would hand fresh sticks of gum to audience members as they entered; the she would strip After audience members chewed the gum, she would ask for it back, twisting each piece into cunt forms that she then applied to her naked body” (Feldman gallery).

In the rest of the series, “Wilke posed half-naked for a series of black-and-white photo stills, adopting the accoutrements and attitudes of female celebrities, but with her torso literally "scarred" with chewing gum shaped into tiny vulvas. The chewing gum interrupts the viewer's desiring gaze, calling attention to the objectification of woman's bodies” (Guggenheim).

The black and white photograph is simultaneously beautiful, disturbing and inviting; the different emotions juxtapose each other greatly. This is interesting because of what it achieves; she looks like an attractive stereotypical beauty from far away, yet she has a more emotionally charged agenda once you get closer. Every part is in sharp focus and it brings attention to each piece of gum that is on her. The visual implications of this piece have to do with the way that the media and audiences treat women. Her sultry gaze at the viewer is inviting but it is disturbing to see that she has gum pieces on her body that have already been chewed. This is meant to get a strong reaction out of viewers and the female population as she represents western women.

With the inclusion of the audience members, she purposely places them at the center of her work, making them possessive of the power that society places upon women:
Wilke mimics an iconic pin-up pose, tempting the viewer’s voyeuristic gaze. The aura of impeccable glamour she projects is disrupted by the pieces of gum—chewed and kneaded to resemble vulvas—that mar her otherwise flawless back. According to the artist, the gum symbolized women’s second-class status, their “disposability. They might also allude to Christian stigmata or the scarification rituals of tribal cultures. The work’s title is rife with contradictions: it blurs the distinction between "stars" and "scars," suggesting that glamour is inextricable from injury and female beauty from distress. (Princeton).

This strong feminist piece is the reason we are still looking at it decades later. The poor treatment of women when compared to men can still be seen today. This is especially true today with women artists who are constantly overlooked in a male dominated society. This kind of message of self-portraiture was what she was interested in conveying with her body and her artworks.

Wilke continued to use her body as a vehicle for portraying herself. In fact, she used her nude body in the series “So Help Me Hannah” from 1978-81. One piece titled from the series is Portrait of the Artist with Her Mother, Selma Butter which is a diptych of two color cibachrome photographs. This is a dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process used for the reproduction of film transparencies on photographic paper. Wilke and her mother Selma Butter are in the same pose - both topless - but there are striking differences. For instance, Wilke’s chest is covered with small toys that cover her breasts. Her mother is also topless but her chest shows the ramifications of breast cancer and the long battle she fought. While both are very personal and intimate poses, Wilke’s is unapologetically and fiercely staring straight at the camera while her mother on the other hand is more smiling playfully and shyly. While cancer, death and loss is a tough subject to speak about, Wilke portrays her mother in a loving and beautiful way. This is unlike typical depictions of women and therefore very intriguing for viewers of the twenty first century. The nature of the stillness in both of these women’s poses suggests a sense of preservation of that very moment the photograph was taken despite the tough cancer fight that Wilke’s mother fought and Wilke would also combat.

Almost twenty years after the iconic S.O.S. Series, Wilke’s body is seen in an unconventional hospital setting. In 1987, Wilke was diagnosed with lymphoma. “In 1991, Wilke began to document the effects of her illness/treatment. With the help of her husband, writer and editor Donald Goddard, she produced Intra-Venus, a painfully profound series using photographs and mixed-media to reveal the gradual deterioration of her once-familiar body.” The color photograph of this series I will discuss is Photograph #6 taken on February 19, 1992 which shows a nude woman from the shoulders up.
“Wilke’s work related to the female nude form an uncompromising record of her own physical deterioration due to lymphoma; central to the exhibit was a series of thirteen larger-than-life-sized portraits” (Santa Monica Museum of Art).

Wilke is the subject of photograph, as in many of her works. She is no longer posing provocatively as if she’s a pin up in a magazine, but rather gazing directly at the viewer with her left side to the camera. The same strong and defiant pose is unmistakably Wilke’s. What is different is the way her body has begun to change. Her hair is no longer full and lush as it once was. It is evident that she has aged and begun to lose hair. She bares everything that she has and does not try to hide the way she looks or her tired, red eyes. This is unlike any other self portrait because she is not romanticizing her body as is so often in females nudes taken by men, but instead she is bringing attention to the realistic views of women’s bodies as they grow older.

“In typical Wilke fashion, the title of these final works, also Intra-Venus, is a pun, referring both to a medical procedure she came to know and to the traditional feminine ideal that was the lifelong focus of her artistic investigation. Intra-Venus was organized by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, and was accompanied by a catalog.” Wilke died on January, 28, 1993 from her battle with lymphoma.


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