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EVA HESSE: There's not been one normal thing in my life.
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Not one.
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Art is the easiest thing.
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It doesn't mean I've worked little on it,
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but it's the only thing I never had to.
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Eva Hesse was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.
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Her idea was to make an art
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that was on the borderline of uncontrollability.
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This was someone who'd not simply made small scale work,
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but someone who's capable of making really major statements.
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HESSE: I have the most openness about my art.
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I'm willing, really, to walk on the edge.
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And if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go.
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Her sensibility was exquisite. And you could feel the tension in her voice
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when she spoke about her work.
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HESSE: I get so close,
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then change,
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destroy.
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I get distrustful of myself...
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Painting went lousy today...
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To be able to finish one and stand ground.
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This is me.
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This is what I want to say.
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Eva's life and her art definitely merged.
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She wasn't just manipulating materials,
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she was the materials.
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It all fell together at one point for her.
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And she ran with it.
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HESSE: One day, it will all fit together,
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and I feel capable of being there and ready.
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It will all have been worthwhile for what I've gained from it.
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(JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING)
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HESSE: I'm not a writer.
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Nor, may you say,
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should be that pretentious to write down my thoughts.
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An Autobiographical Sketch of a Nobody.
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This is the story of one whom, from the outside,
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reveals a rather pretty picture.
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Pretty face,
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pretty body,
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pretty dress.
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However, the person does not feel pretty inside.
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I have felt, for the majority of my life,
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different, alone, and apart from others.
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To complicate the matter some,
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for the last years I have shown and developed talents as a painter,
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a good one, at that.
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Was it in my feeling estranged and different
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that I could claim the title of painter?
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What I've accepted as the answer is
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that the true artist is paradoxically also
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the true personal misfit.
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Eva was definitely my father's favorite.
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Not because...
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Only because he, I think, felt that she was more vulnerable.
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I was the older one and I understood more.
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But I think that he was so off base.
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Eva was the strong one.
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There were times she felt helpless.
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But she had gutsiness right from the get-go.
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HESSE: When I was 16, I went to Pratt Institute.
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And I didn't like it very much at all.
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When you started painting class,
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you had to do a lemon still life.
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And then, you graduated to a lemon and bread still life.
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And then, you graduated to a lemon, bread, and egg still life.
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This was not my idea of painting.
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I waited until I was getting As instead of Cs,
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and declared I was quitting.
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I had to know that it wasn't because I wasn't doing well.
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So, I had to go home.
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As soon as I got there, my stepmother said, "Get a job."
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So where do you go at 16-and-a-half,
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knowing very little and having an interest in art?
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I took myself to Seventeen Magazine.
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And for some strange reason,
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they hired me.
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I think it was just because of the gall of coming up there.
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She had the experience of working at a woman's magazine
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and she said it made a huge difference for her,
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that it gave her confidence.
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And she got some of her work out into the world.
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HESSE: I took the middle of the year test for Cooper Union,
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and that was the only plan I made.
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I had to make it.
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I got in.
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And the following September, I went to Cooper Union,
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which I loved from the very start.
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Eva was certainly aware that she wanted to be an artist.
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But my father could not accept that.
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WILLIAM HESSE: Dear Evachen,
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you were always very successful in all that you did.
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But painting and studying are pleasant jobs.
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In order to stand on your feet,
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you have to do things which you feel today are not so pleasant.
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And if a person has a job or earns a living,
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this is something which also gives satisfaction.
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HESSE: Daddy, I want to do more than just exist,
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to live happily and contented with a home, children,
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to do the same chores every day.
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I am an artist.
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I want to experience all what life has to offer.
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And I have to do this for myself.
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ROSIE GOLDMAN: I met Eva when she was 17.
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What fascinated me most about her
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was her hands.
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She spoke with her hands.
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All the vitality in her came through her hands.
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We spent an enormous amount of time together.
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And that became a very close friendship.
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HESSE: Dearest Rosie,
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I dreamt that you and I collaborated on a book
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where we talked over our entire past,
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very honest, nothing hidden.
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The whole bit.
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GOLDMAN: She was living on Jane Street.
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She had a little room with a gigantic bed.
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She was very comfortable in this
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box, almost, of a room.
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As long as she could do her art, it didn't matter.
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SYLVIA:We both went to Cooper Union and Yale.
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I was two years younger than her
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so I watched her.
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I had this sense that she was somebody to watch.
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She was a very smart,
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articulate and beautiful person
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who needed someone to listen to her
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so she could get it all out and work.
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She went to Yale and studied painting,
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famously with, most famously with Josef Albers.
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HESSE: I was Albers' little color studyist.
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Everybody always called me that.
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And every time he walked into the classroom,
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he would ask, "What did Eva do?"
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The last two years have probably been the two most eventful,
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with the greatest of change deep inside myself.
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I've become a painter.
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SUSSMAN: She finished art school at the end of the '50s
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and she went from Yale into New York in 1960.
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Kennedy had been elected.
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This was really the dawn of a new age.
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(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
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HESSE: I've moved so rapidly.
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I feel so alive.
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I'm almost too anxious for every moment and every future moment.
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Being an artist in New York City in the '60s was totally wonderful.
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It was a great time.
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In almost all facets of work
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and music, literature, poetry,
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but particularly in painting,
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everything was opening up.
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There was a feeling like we were reinventing painting.
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HESSE: I will abandon restrictions and curbs imposed on myself.
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I will strip me of superficial dishonesties.
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I will paint against every rule.
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And you have to understand that that time,
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there wasn't any art world.
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There were people making work
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for themselves and for each other.
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And there wasn't any product.
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Commodification hadn't happened.
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The art world hadn't been taken over by collectors.
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No one was thinking about how much money they were going to make.
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It was all dedicating your life to your work.
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And I know that Eva felt that way, too.
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HESSE: Only painting can now see me through.
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It is totally interdependent with my entire being.
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It is what I have found through which I can express myself.
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SOL LEWITT: She came to New York and I met her.
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She'd just gotten out of Yale.
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Eva was very pretty and cute,
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very alive and hip, and knew a lot of people because of being at Yale.
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I recognized that she had something extraordinary about her work.
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HESSE: I'm beginning to sell and show my work,
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in that order.
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One gave me the confidence to proceed to the other.
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International Watercolor Show at the Brooklyn Museum
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and 3 young Americans,
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my show last evening.
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It is the beginning of being fully in the midst of the art world.
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I've been with Tom Doyle the last three days.
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I'm really so happy.
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There was a party held at this friend of mine's place.
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And I was in a fight.
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This guy was making out with my girlfriend,
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so I hit him.
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Eva was at the party
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and she took me in the kitchen
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and washed my face,
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and she was very nice to me, you know.
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And that was the first time I met her.
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HESSE: Tom is a beautiful human being
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and I enjoy all aspects of him.
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It is a real, live and beautiful romance.
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Tom was a wonderful, lively, poetic, funny Irish drunk at that point.
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GOLDMAN: She was warned against him,
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that he comes from a very wild crowd,
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really wasn't good for her.
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But he gave her something that she very much needed.
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HESSE: I feel he's really with me
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and I am with him.
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I have never felt this before.
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That summer, Eva and Tom invited me to go to
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George Segal's farm.
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DOYLE:All these young artists are coming up
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from New York to do this carnival.
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And there was gonna be a sculpture dance.
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I made a sculpture that was like a fighter plane.
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And Eva, it was her first sculpture, really,
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was a very, kind of, formless thing.
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Two people got in and danced.
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And all these sculptures were dancing.
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GOLDMAN: They also had a happening.
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It was living theater
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without any script.
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HONIG: There was a dancer, Yvonne Rainer,
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who was dancing on the roof of a barn.
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SERRA: Artists were interfacing with a lot of dancers at the time.
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We thought that there were more ideas generated in dance
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than being generated by sculptors or painters.
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HONIG: Eva had constructed a tube
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made of fabric that people were to wiggle through.
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It was fun.
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It was artists playing and having a good time.
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HESSE:All is well.
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It's been a beautiful week.
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I love Tom more every day.
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DOYLE: Her father said, "I don't want you marrying anyone except a Jew."
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So I converted.
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I became a Jew. I mean, I went to shul, I did the whole number.
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CHARASH:You know, they were not interested in any religion.
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But for my father,
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and because of our German background,
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she went along with it and Tom went along with it.
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DOYLE:Two or three friends of mine all had never been Bar Mitzvah-ed,
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so we had a Bar Mitzvah. We played Belle Barth records, you know. (LAUGHS)
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And gave each other fountain pens,
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the whole stick.
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Tom was a good and interesting sculptor, just coming into his mature work
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and Eva was clearly a good artist.
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But there wasn't anything unique there, yet.
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But she was very ambitious
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and full of youthful art energy.
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DOYLE:We got a loft on 19th and 5th Avenue.
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It was a great loft. It was a half a block long.
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We rented part of it out to Ethelyn Honig.
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HONIG:One of the mornings that I arrived,
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I told them about the fact that I had just seen
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a major exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery.
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It was called Pop Art.
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And I said, "I think you ought to get over there"
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"and take a look and see what's going on."
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"It's never gonna be the same."
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LIPPARD:Pop art, of course, burst onto the scene
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and that was a big deal.
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Pop art was a sort of game changer.
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SUSSMAN: The discussions that came up afterwards
258
00:16:35,553 --> 00:16:39,805
of people for and against it were passionate.
259
00:16:39,806 --> 00:16:42,225
And, of course, Eva always went to museums
260
00:16:42,226 --> 00:16:44,978
and knew exactly what was going on.
261
00:16:44,979 --> 00:16:46,813
And I have a feeling
262
00:16:46,814 --> 00:16:52,946
that she might have been more for it than Tom.
263
00:16:57,034 --> 00:17:01,703
WAPNER: She didn't have accepted truths.
264
00:17:01,704 --> 00:17:05,167
And she examined and doubted
265
00:17:05,919 --> 00:17:08,003
and, um,
266
00:17:09,548 --> 00:17:10,756
thought about things.
267
00:17:10,757 --> 00:17:14,676
HESSE:Should I impose my preconceived ideas on painting?
268
00:17:14,678 --> 00:17:20,723
And to what degree must I go along with what happens on canvas in the moment?
269
00:17:20,724 --> 00:17:25,146
BARBARA BROWN: When she was painting, she was very blocked.
270
00:17:25,147 --> 00:17:28,108
But her early collages
271
00:17:28,108 --> 00:17:32,530
were extraordinary. I mean, she could draw like nobody.
272
00:17:32,531 --> 00:17:36,741
Any time she drew anything, it was really beautiful.
273
00:17:36,742 --> 00:17:41,540
HESSE: For me, painting has become that, making art,
274
00:17:41,748 --> 00:17:43,375
painting a painting.
275
00:17:43,376 --> 00:17:47,297
The history, the tradition is too much there.
276
00:17:47,673 --> 00:17:49,756
I want to be surprised.
277
00:17:50,509 --> 00:17:52,593
I will continue drawing,
278
00:17:52,594 --> 00:17:53,886
push the individuality of them,
279
00:17:53,887 --> 00:17:57,307
even though they go against every major trend.
280
00:17:57,975 --> 00:17:59,351
Fuck that.
281
00:17:59,352 --> 00:18:01,646
So did everyone I admire.
282
00:18:06,775 --> 00:18:10,779
DOYLE:Eva was working at a jewelry store on Bleecker Street
283
00:18:10,780 --> 00:18:14,075
and I got a job teaching at the New School.
284
00:18:14,076 --> 00:18:15,910
And that's one of the two jobs I had,
285
00:18:15,911 --> 00:18:19,038
and that's how we were sort of living on that.
286
00:18:19,039 --> 00:18:22,125
And then what happened was Arnold Rudlinger,
287
00:18:22,126 --> 00:18:23,835
the director the Kunstverein,
288
00:18:23,836 --> 00:18:27,006
and a bunch of German collectors
289
00:18:27,007 --> 00:18:29,719
saw my stone sculptures.
290
00:18:30,510 --> 00:18:33,137
Rudlinger was going to give me a show in Basel.
291
00:18:33,138 --> 00:18:34,221
He said, "How do you move these things?"
292
00:18:34,222 --> 00:18:36,849
I said, "Well, you have to build a box and lala..."
293
00:18:36,850 --> 00:18:41,146
And Scheidt said, "Look, we have stone very much like that.
294
00:18:41,147 --> 00:18:45,108
"Why don't you come to Germany and, you know,"
295
00:18:45,109 --> 00:18:50,281
"you can make the sculpture in Germany and we'll send it to Switzerland, you know?"
296
00:18:50,282 --> 00:18:52,825
And I said, "Yeah, I would do that."
297
00:18:56,789 --> 00:18:59,874
Eva was sort of scared about going there, you know,
298
00:18:59,875 --> 00:19:03,713
because of what happened... had happened to her family.
299
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:07,425
HESSE: I sit here now panicked and crying.
300
00:19:07,841 --> 00:19:10,843
The pressure of leaving lies heavy on me.
301
00:19:10,844 --> 00:19:15,350
I said, "Look, it's a good time to be out of New York."
302
00:19:15,351 --> 00:19:17,310
Pop art is a big thing, now.
303
00:19:17,311 --> 00:19:18,228
We'll let that die down.
304
00:19:18,229 --> 00:19:22,899
And Scheidt was going to give me a salary and everything, you know.
305
00:19:22,900 --> 00:19:23,941
We won't have to work.
306
00:19:23,942 --> 00:19:26,529
You know, we'll just work on our work.
307
00:19:26,988 --> 00:19:30,825
HONIG: I remember her saying that she was frightened
308
00:19:30,826 --> 00:19:32,867
of going back to this place
309
00:19:32,868 --> 00:19:34,788
where she had suffered so much.
310
00:19:34,789 --> 00:19:38,874
CHARASH: But Sol LeWitt, a close friend, a close confidante,
311
00:19:38,875 --> 00:19:41,961
encouraged her, saying that she would be well served
312
00:19:41,962 --> 00:19:44,255
to get out of the New York art scene.
313
00:19:44,256 --> 00:19:48,885
She would be able to work in a much freer manner.
314
00:19:54,476 --> 00:19:55,892
HESSE: Dear Mr. Scheidt,
315
00:19:55,893 --> 00:19:58,605
I have begun to make preparations for our trip,
316
00:19:58,606 --> 00:20:02,900
so the whole thing is becoming very real for us.
317
00:20:02,901 --> 00:20:03,902
It was Tom's opportunity.
318
00:20:03,903 --> 00:20:07,198
It was Tom who had been asked to go to Germany.
319
00:20:07,616 --> 00:20:09,534
It was very hard for her.
320
00:20:09,535 --> 00:20:12,910
But Eva wouldn't let an opportunity go by.
321
00:20:12,911 --> 00:20:13,913
Eva was a risk taker.
322
00:20:13,914 --> 00:20:17,916
Though Eva was a little bit more of a wife at that point,
323
00:20:17,917 --> 00:20:19,754
but all that would change.
324
00:20:25,677 --> 00:20:27,928
(TURBINES WHOOSHING)
325
00:20:47,576 --> 00:20:51,831
(SPEAKING GERMAN)
326
00:21:01,174 --> 00:21:05,135
SUSSMAN: Tom and Eva were set up in Kettwig,
327
00:21:05,136 --> 00:21:07,346
this town that had these textile factories
328
00:21:07,347 --> 00:21:12,561
that had been in the family of Arnard Scheidt for hundreds of years.
329
00:21:16,315 --> 00:21:19,401
Where Eva and Tom lived were over there,
330
00:21:19,402 --> 00:21:22,821
that was the so-called...
331
00:21:22,822 --> 00:21:24,199
(SPEAKS GERMAN)
332
00:21:26,034 --> 00:21:30,497
But the part where they were working
333
00:21:30,498 --> 00:21:32,248
that was already...
334
00:21:32,249 --> 00:21:34,709
JOHANN:That was closed down already.
335
00:21:34,710 --> 00:21:35,835
HESSE:Our studio,
336
00:21:35,836 --> 00:21:40,006
top floor with skylight and windows every two feet.
337
00:21:40,007 --> 00:21:42,677
I sit and hope I will work some.
338
00:21:43,009 --> 00:21:45,094
I might just have to believe in me more
339
00:21:45,095 --> 00:21:48,057
before working will mean something to me.
340
00:21:48,058 --> 00:21:50,601
GABRIELE: The first time that I saw Eva,
341
00:21:50,602 --> 00:21:54,649
she gave me a very warm feeling,
342
00:21:55,399 --> 00:21:59,070
a feeling of being welcomed.
343
00:21:59,905 --> 00:22:00,906
I was five-years-old,
344
00:22:00,907 --> 00:22:04,951
and she invited me to come to the atelier.
345
00:22:04,952 --> 00:22:08,997
She wanted to show me how to paint.
346
00:22:09,748 --> 00:22:13,836
And of course, we played lots in the pool.
347
00:22:14,503 --> 00:22:15,671
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)
348
00:22:15,672 --> 00:22:18,840
You had these water balls playing,
349
00:22:18,841 --> 00:22:22,512
and we were...(CHUCKLES) jumping into the pool.
350
00:22:24,180 --> 00:22:25,766
It was great.
351
00:22:26,474 --> 00:22:29,852
She painted for my other brother, Karl,
352
00:22:29,853 --> 00:22:33,190
a picture called Waterball Play.
353
00:22:33,482 --> 00:22:35,608
I guess she loved it, too,
354
00:22:35,609 --> 00:22:39,029
being with us and just playing.
355
00:22:39,030 --> 00:22:43,073
So I have very sunny impressions,
356
00:22:43,074 --> 00:22:49,833
but I also have, um, some memories later in the year.
357
00:22:49,834 --> 00:22:55,171
There was something in her which was, um...
358
00:22:55,506 --> 00:22:58,090
traurig,sad.
359
00:22:58,091 --> 00:23:02,639
I think it was difficult for her, being in this country.
360
00:23:04,097 --> 00:23:06,810
HESSE: June 13th, 1964.
361
00:23:07,477 --> 00:23:10,188
Our sixth day here in Kettwig.
362
00:23:10,647 --> 00:23:13,692
Yesterday I had some melancholy.
363
00:23:13,693 --> 00:23:19,113
I developed some of my more troubled thoughts and feelings.
364
00:23:19,699 --> 00:23:23,661
I was born in Germany, in 1936.
365
00:23:32,671 --> 00:23:33,631
(INDISTINCT TALKING)
366
00:23:33,632 --> 00:23:38,301
My family is from Hamburg, Germany, northern Germany.
367
00:23:38,302 --> 00:23:42,138
That's where I was born and that's where Eva was born.
368
00:23:42,349 --> 00:23:44,975
HESSE: My father was a criminal lawyer.
369
00:23:44,976 --> 00:23:47,561
He had just finished his two doctorates
370
00:23:47,562 --> 00:23:51,398
and I had the most beautiful mother in the world.
371
00:23:51,399 --> 00:23:53,986
She looked like Ingrid Bergman.
372
00:23:54,151 --> 00:23:56,656
She studied art in Hamburg.
373
00:23:59,117 --> 00:24:04,581
CHARASH: My father kept tagebucher about my life and Eva's life.
374
00:24:05,499 --> 00:24:07,250
It's really a journal.
375
00:24:07,626 --> 00:24:09,293
WILLIAM: May this book of your childhood
376
00:24:09,294 --> 00:24:12,464
become a guide in your later life.
377
00:24:13,172 --> 00:24:16,175
In it, you will realize how you grew up.
378
00:24:16,427 --> 00:24:19,554
None of this may get lost, my beloved child,
379
00:24:19,555 --> 00:24:23,725
because there is nothing that sustains us more
380
00:24:23,726 --> 00:24:25,394
in the hardships of our lives
381
00:24:25,395 --> 00:24:28,440
than a review of our childhood.
382
00:24:35,196 --> 00:24:37,991
When Helen was born, freedom and truth
383
00:24:37,992 --> 00:24:41,371
had vanished already from Germany.
384
00:24:41,871 --> 00:24:46,208
It was already five months that Hitler raged.
385
00:24:46,543 --> 00:24:49,461
German Jewish life changed very quickly.
386
00:24:49,462 --> 00:24:53,591
When the Nazis came to power in January, 1933,
387
00:24:53,592 --> 00:24:56,219
there were so many deprivation.
388
00:24:56,220 --> 00:24:57,721
People were hurt.
389
00:24:57,722 --> 00:24:59,556
They couldn't work in their professions anymore.
390
00:24:59,557 --> 00:25:03,309
It was forbidden to work as a so-called Jewish lawyer.
391
00:25:03,310 --> 00:25:09,232
WILLIAM: I lost my profession on April 24th, 1933.
392
00:25:09,233 --> 00:25:12,236
And then there were more hard years.
393
00:25:13,823 --> 00:25:16,240
(CROWD CHANTING)
394
00:25:24,793 --> 00:25:25,794
After November 10,
395
00:25:25,795 --> 00:25:29,005
when all the synagogues had been destroyed,
396
00:25:29,006 --> 00:25:31,759
all Jewish businesses wrecked,
397
00:25:32,051 --> 00:25:35,053
almost all the men had been arrested,
398
00:25:35,054 --> 00:25:38,389
and the most horrible atrocities of all kinds
399
00:25:38,390 --> 00:25:43,104
been committed against the Jews all over Germany.
400
00:25:43,105 --> 00:25:49,402
One tried from abroad, at least, to save the children as speedily as possible.
401
00:25:55,283 --> 00:25:55,994
On December 7th,
402
00:25:55,995 --> 00:26:01,373
Helen and Eva left for Holland with the children's transport.
403
00:26:02,290 --> 00:26:04,293
Will there be a reunion?
404
00:26:04,669 --> 00:26:07,173
Will we get murdered first?
405
00:26:07,296 --> 00:26:09,883
We were not allowed on the platform.
406
00:26:09,884 --> 00:26:13,301
Helen and Eva held hands and marched off to the train,
407
00:26:13,302 --> 00:26:19,435
accompanied by criminals certified as customs officials and Gestapo.
408
00:26:23,148 --> 00:26:25,651
(CHILDREN SINGING IN GERMAN)
409
00:26:39,123 --> 00:26:43,335
CHARASH: Eva was under three, and I was five-and-a-half.
410
00:26:43,336 --> 00:26:46,090
(CHILDREN CONTINUE SINGING)
411
00:26:46,298 --> 00:26:47,381
HESSE: We went to Holland.
412
00:26:47,382 --> 00:26:52,345
We were supposed to be picked up by my father's brother and his wife,
413
00:26:52,555 --> 00:26:54,806
but they weren't allowed to do it.
414
00:26:54,807 --> 00:26:57,936
We were put in a Catholic children's home.
415
00:26:58,351 --> 00:26:59,812
CHARASH: I remember that Eva
416
00:26:59,813 --> 00:27:01,313
had been toilet trained at home,
417
00:27:01,314 --> 00:27:07,028
but she must have regressed with all that happened and they spanked her.
418
00:27:07,029 --> 00:27:09,362
She took sick around her birthday time,
419
00:27:09,363 --> 00:27:13,828
and she was quarantined, so they didn't let me see her.
420
00:27:14,996 --> 00:27:16,496
WILLIAM: In the beginning of February,
421
00:27:16,497 --> 00:27:19,374
Ruth and I were rescued, as well.
422
00:27:19,375 --> 00:27:23,255
We came to Holland and picked up the children.
423
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,008
HESSE: My father's brother and his wife
424
00:27:27,009 --> 00:27:29,886
ended up in concentration camps.
425
00:27:29,887 --> 00:27:33,808
And all of my grandparents and everybody.
426
00:27:34,390 --> 00:27:36,060
No one made it.
427
00:27:36,728 --> 00:27:38,270
But we did.
428
00:27:38,271 --> 00:27:42,649
We went to America via one of my father's cousins.
429
00:27:42,650 --> 00:27:45,779
It was the end of summer, 1939.
430
00:27:46,071 --> 00:27:48,405
It was very, very late.
431
00:27:49,325 --> 00:27:51,577
It was the last chance.
432
00:28:07,802 --> 00:28:10,430
July 21st, 1964.
433
00:28:11,265 --> 00:28:14,809
Dear Rosie, I had a slow week.
434
00:28:14,810 --> 00:28:16,435
Did not push at all.
435
00:28:16,436 --> 00:28:17,854
Took it easy.
436
00:28:17,855 --> 00:28:21,818
I don't know what it means to really delve into the past,
437
00:28:22,277 --> 00:28:24,029
family and such.
438
00:28:24,696 --> 00:28:26,615
I must be too afraid.
439
00:28:27,115 --> 00:28:31,996
The first two weeks here, I had terrible, gruesome nightmares.
440
00:28:35,456 --> 00:28:36,834
Frightful dream.
441
00:28:38,544 --> 00:28:40,087
Large party.
442
00:28:40,088 --> 00:28:41,048
(JAZZ PLAYING)
443
00:28:41,049 --> 00:28:42,463
Hundreds of people.
444
00:28:42,464 --> 00:28:43,632
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
445
00:28:43,633 --> 00:28:45,009
Official.
446
00:28:45,010 --> 00:28:46,052
(GLASS CLINKING)
447
00:28:46,053 --> 00:28:47,762
Tom very drunk.
448
00:28:47,763 --> 00:28:52,726
I heard someone tell him, "Take your lovely wife home."
449
00:28:54,270 --> 00:28:58,023
He carried me outside, ran with me, fast.
450
00:28:58,024 --> 00:29:00,318
(FOOTSTEPS RUNNING)
451
00:29:01,027 --> 00:29:02,486
Hurt me.
452
00:29:06,490 --> 00:29:10,287
We went higher and higher through the sky.
453
00:29:11,455 --> 00:29:14,875
There was a French Legion parade beneath us.
454
00:29:16,669 --> 00:29:20,547
Officers came out, and with long, saber swords
455
00:29:20,548 --> 00:29:23,802
cut the heads off all the legionnaires.
456
00:29:24,510 --> 00:29:26,846
I had to control Tom. (ROARS)
457
00:29:26,847 --> 00:29:31,184
Officers then grabbed us and threw us into solitary.
458
00:29:31,185 --> 00:29:33,895
We had swords held inches away,
459
00:29:33,896 --> 00:29:36,522
I, by my screaming head.
460
00:29:36,523 --> 00:29:41,528
I could no longer control myself, but was warned to behave.
461
00:29:41,821 --> 00:29:42,529
(TRAIN CHUGGING)
462
00:29:42,530 --> 00:29:45,450
They said that if I were not a child,
463
00:29:45,451 --> 00:29:47,911
they already would've killed me.
464
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:57,421
Friday.
465
00:29:57,422 --> 00:29:59,466
Initially, I felt different.
466
00:29:59,467 --> 00:30:02,511
But once again, I'm left with myself.
467
00:30:03,345 --> 00:30:05,763
Started work in oil paint today.
468
00:30:05,764 --> 00:30:09,557
Did two tiny, very expressionistic paintings.
469
00:30:09,558 --> 00:30:14,564
Feel rather enthused, since I enjoyed them and they seemed real for me.
470
00:30:15,150 --> 00:30:17,486
Somehow, I think that counts.
471
00:30:18,153 --> 00:30:22,573
I'm still not working right, as I know in my mind one should.
472
00:30:22,824 --> 00:30:25,327
Tom also can find working difficult.
473
00:30:25,328 --> 00:30:31,125
Less so, as he knows what he's about, what he wants to achieve.
474
00:30:32,583 --> 00:30:33,585
When she would talk about her work,
475
00:30:33,586 --> 00:30:37,588
she would talk about it in quite self-deprecating terms.
476
00:30:37,589 --> 00:30:41,592
She would say, "You know, I'm patshke-ing around with new things."
477
00:30:41,593 --> 00:30:43,721
And I thought to myself, that's a funny thing to say.
478
00:30:43,722 --> 00:30:46,975
You would never say Tom's patshke-ing around.
479
00:30:47,851 --> 00:30:49,770
She wasn't sure, yet.
480
00:30:52,065 --> 00:30:53,606
Tom was sure.
481
00:30:57,153 --> 00:30:59,154
WERNER NEKES: I met Eva and Tom Doyle
482
00:30:59,155 --> 00:31:04,701
during the Short Film Days, a film festival of short films in Oberhausen,
483
00:31:04,702 --> 00:31:08,623
and I remember that Eva liked specially
484
00:31:08,749 --> 00:31:13,879
a Japanese film by Yoji Kuri,Aos.
485
00:31:14,629 --> 00:31:15,840
(SCREECHES)
486
00:31:17,300 --> 00:31:18,633
(SCREECHES AGAIN)
487
00:31:18,634 --> 00:31:26,185
Eva took those boxes as a scene in some of her paintings later on.
488
00:31:26,642 --> 00:31:27,853
(GASPING)
489
00:31:31,858 --> 00:31:34,109
Eva was ready all the time
490
00:31:34,110 --> 00:31:37,530
to take all the inferences that she saw
491
00:31:37,531 --> 00:31:41,657
and to work on them to find her own way.
492
00:31:41,658 --> 00:31:42,494
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
493
00:31:42,495 --> 00:31:47,248
In the 15 months Eva Hesse was in Germany,
494
00:31:47,249 --> 00:31:49,083
there happened a lot.
495
00:31:49,084 --> 00:31:49,751
Together with Tom Doyle,
496
00:31:49,752 --> 00:31:53,713
she went into every important museum in whole Europe.
497
00:31:53,714 --> 00:31:57,675
They were in London, in Paris, in Rome.
498
00:31:57,676 --> 00:31:59,011
HESSE: Brussels. Went to museum.
499
00:31:59,012 --> 00:32:05,311
Bruegel and Bosch, Alechinsky, Matsys, Calder, Moore, Chillida, Davie, Noguchi.
500
00:32:06,645 --> 00:32:08,687
PETZINGER: She was a person...
501
00:32:08,688 --> 00:32:13,109
whose eyes were open, open, open.
502
00:32:13,110 --> 00:32:16,990
And she needed food for her eyes.
503
00:32:19,784 --> 00:32:22,119
LEWITT: Tom and Eva Doyle, Kettwig.
504
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,373
Hope you had a good trip. Now back to work.
505
00:32:25,374 --> 00:32:28,710
All sculptures are objects of one kind or another.
506
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,379
Don't fight it. Go, go.
507
00:32:31,380 --> 00:32:32,674
Sol.
508
00:32:32,714 --> 00:32:34,715
DOYLE: We worked on each other's stuff.
509
00:32:34,716 --> 00:32:37,261
I mean, she helped me when I painted my sculpture.
510
00:32:37,262 --> 00:32:42,099
And I helped her, you know, as much as... I built frames, I built everything, you know.
511
00:32:42,100 --> 00:32:44,393
Our private life was not so great,
512
00:32:44,394 --> 00:32:46,854
but our working life was very good.
513
00:32:46,855 --> 00:32:48,730
Except I drank a little too much, then,
514
00:32:48,731 --> 00:32:51,236
you know. I was drinking a lot.
515
00:32:51,653 --> 00:32:53,238
That wasn't too good.
516
00:32:54,113 --> 00:32:56,575
HESSE: Saturday, October 3rd.
517
00:32:56,740 --> 00:32:59,370
Tom knocked someone unconscious.
518
00:32:59,869 --> 00:33:02,247
Tom worse than ever before,
519
00:33:02,248 --> 00:33:06,085
and I cried and was miserable all night.
520
00:33:09,046 --> 00:33:13,593
Dearest Rosie, my anger at Tom increases.
521
00:33:13,758 --> 00:33:15,845
It verges on a breaking point.
522
00:33:16,762 --> 00:33:18,723
At parties, he is obnoxious.
523
00:33:18,724 --> 00:33:23,478
He goes from woman to next woman, dips them to ground.
524
00:33:23,479 --> 00:33:24,104
They love it.
525
00:33:24,105 --> 00:33:27,440
I'm not proud of it, but I... That's the way I was, you know?
526
00:33:27,441 --> 00:33:30,986
And that's the way everybody was, you know? It's like...
527
00:33:30,987 --> 00:33:31,655
It's like...
528
00:33:31,656 --> 00:33:36,075
That's why you were an artist, you know, so you... (CHUCKLES)
529
00:33:36,783 --> 00:33:39,870
HESSE: Recently it has got out of hand.
530
00:33:39,871 --> 00:33:42,124
You'll be concerned by this.
531
00:33:43,166 --> 00:33:44,792
He kisses them.
532
00:33:45,168 --> 00:33:47,794
It sounds so strange to write this.
533
00:33:47,795 --> 00:33:52,677
But Rosie, my pride hurts to be there watching.
534
00:33:53,344 --> 00:33:54,803
It hurts.
535
00:33:56,180 --> 00:33:59,393
She sort of withdrew, you know, and, uh...
536
00:34:00,102 --> 00:34:03,229
she never really come out against it but you know,
537
00:34:03,230 --> 00:34:05,815
she was very hurt by it, I think.
538
00:34:07,192 --> 00:34:07,817
CHARASH: Eva writes...
539
00:34:07,818 --> 00:34:11,281
she always says it's her art that pulled her through.
540
00:34:11,821 --> 00:34:13,906
Personally, I think she fell apart,
541
00:34:13,907 --> 00:34:18,829
and professionally, she forced herself to go on.
542
00:34:22,501 --> 00:34:25,210
HESSE: Thursday, November 19th.
543
00:34:25,212 --> 00:34:27,840
I've turned over a new leaf.
544
00:34:28,257 --> 00:34:30,217
I will try another way.
545
00:34:30,885 --> 00:34:33,844
Made drawings for children on Saturday.
546
00:34:33,844 --> 00:34:38,559
They were colorful. Red, blue, yellow, green.
547
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:41,853
In squares, each one a letter of alphabet.
548
00:34:42,607 --> 00:34:44,399
It set me off again
549
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:45,858
because they are different,
550
00:34:45,859 --> 00:34:48,737
just enough to make me wonder where I'm going,
551
00:34:48,737 --> 00:34:54,452
and is there an idea, or too many different ones?
552
00:35:02,877 --> 00:35:05,589
LIPPARD: I think maybe the relationship going bad on some level
553
00:35:05,590 --> 00:35:08,801
maybe had something to do with it. You know, it's a horrible fact
554
00:35:08,802 --> 00:35:12,638
of a lot of creativity, when you're unhappy, you often do better work.
555
00:35:12,639 --> 00:35:13,931
But, but she really
556
00:35:13,932 --> 00:35:15,890
wasn't dependent on him as much anymore,
557
00:35:15,891 --> 00:35:19,729
I think, and really branched out and did her own thing.
558
00:35:19,730 --> 00:35:22,898
HESSE: Dear Rosie, I want to explain what I've been doing.
559
00:35:22,899 --> 00:35:28,071
In the abandoned factory where we work, there's lots of junk around.
560
00:35:28,072 --> 00:35:32,618
I have, all these months, looked over much of the junk.
561
00:35:32,619 --> 00:35:35,789
I finally started using some of it.
562
00:35:35,912 --> 00:35:37,498
I'm working on masonite.
563
00:35:37,499 --> 00:35:40,917
On this, I build forms with glue and paper.
564
00:35:40,918 --> 00:35:44,921
On some forms, I've glued cord.
565
00:35:44,922 --> 00:35:48,343
That is when she did Ringaround Arosie.
566
00:35:48,344 --> 00:35:51,055
Because I was pregnant with Joseph.
567
00:35:51,682 --> 00:35:52,598
HESSE: Yesterday and today
568
00:35:52,599 --> 00:35:55,933
I worked on a three dimensional contraption.
569
00:35:55,934 --> 00:35:58,689
Not finished yet, but it is weird.
570
00:36:00,023 --> 00:36:01,649
I just don't know.
571
00:36:01,650 --> 00:36:04,069
The old story. Defeatist.
572
00:36:04,278 --> 00:36:05,070
No patience.
573
00:36:05,071 --> 00:36:08,948
Or just not sure what I really want it to be.
574
00:36:12,953 --> 00:36:14,954
April 2nd, 1965.
575
00:36:14,955 --> 00:36:20,420
Dear Sol, it is to you I want to talk about what is on my mind.
576
00:36:20,421 --> 00:36:26,176
I trust myself not enough to come through with any one idea.
577
00:36:26,177 --> 00:36:30,514
So I fluctuate between working at the confusion,
578
00:36:30,515 --> 00:36:33,726
or non-working at the confusion.
579
00:36:33,727 --> 00:36:35,436
When not actually at work,
580
00:36:35,437 --> 00:36:38,607
I nevertheless struggle with the ideas.
581
00:36:43,946 --> 00:36:46,239
LEWITT: April 14th, 1965.
582
00:36:46,240 --> 00:36:48,991
Dear Eva, you seem the same as always.
583
00:36:48,992 --> 00:36:51,830
And being you, hate every minute of it.
584
00:36:52,121 --> 00:36:52,455
Don't!
585
00:36:52,456 --> 00:36:56,919
Learn to say "fuck you" to the world once in awhile. You have every right to.
586
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:03,217
HESSE: I find nothing I do gives me the feeling that this is right.
587
00:37:03,467 --> 00:37:04,968
Constant frustration and failure.
588
00:37:04,969 --> 00:37:07,971
LEWITT: Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder,
589
00:37:07,972 --> 00:37:12,267
wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling,
590
00:37:12,268 --> 00:37:16,355
grasping, confusing, bitching, moaning, groaning, horse shitting, piss-trickling,
591
00:37:16,356 --> 00:37:19,023
nose sticking, eyeball-poking ass-gouging, searching, perching,
592
00:37:19,024 --> 00:37:23,907
grinding, besmirching, grinding, grinding, away at yourself.
593
00:37:24,198 --> 00:37:26,032
Stop it and just do.
594
00:37:28,035 --> 00:37:30,454
HESSE: I have done drawings.
595
00:37:30,455 --> 00:37:31,664
Seems like hundreds.
596
00:37:31,665 --> 00:37:36,168
Clean, clear... But crazy, like machines.
597
00:37:36,169 --> 00:37:40,046
Larger and bolder, articulately described.
598
00:37:40,047 --> 00:37:40,716
Real nonsense.
599
00:37:40,717 --> 00:37:43,927
LEWITT: That sounds fine, wonderful. Real nonsense.
600
00:37:43,928 --> 00:37:48,266
Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines.
601
00:37:48,391 --> 00:37:50,433
Make them abound with nonsense.
602
00:37:50,434 --> 00:37:53,060
HESSE: One should be content with the process
603
00:37:53,061 --> 00:37:55,649
as well as the result.
604
00:37:56,024 --> 00:37:56,733
I'm not.
605
00:37:56,734 --> 00:37:59,193
LEWITT: Stop worrying about big, deep things.
606
00:37:59,194 --> 00:38:04,742
You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty.
607
00:38:04,951 --> 00:38:06,995
Then you'll be able to do.
608
00:38:07,202 --> 00:38:08,787
HESSE: I sit now after two days
609
00:38:08,788 --> 00:38:11,248
of working on a dumb thing, which is three dimensional.
610
00:38:11,249 --> 00:38:16,463
And I should go on with it, but I don't know where I belong.
611
00:38:17,087 --> 00:38:18,423
So I give it up again.
612
00:38:18,424 --> 00:38:20,425
LEWITT: The work you do is very good.
613
00:38:20,426 --> 00:38:25,890
Try to do some bad work, the worst you can think of, and see what happens.
614
00:38:26,098 --> 00:38:30,519
But mainly, relax and let everything go to hell.
615
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:32,103
You're not responsible for the world.
616
00:38:32,104 --> 00:38:35,106
You are only responsible for your work.
617
00:38:35,107 --> 00:38:36,610
So do it.
618
00:38:40,112 --> 00:38:41,948
HESSE: April 23rd.
619
00:38:41,949 --> 00:38:44,115
Worked all evening.
620
00:38:44,116 --> 00:38:46,704
Finished An Ear in a Pond.
621
00:38:58,092 --> 00:39:01,595
Dear Sol, I want to thank you for your letter.
622
00:39:01,721 --> 00:39:03,513
I finished one more.
623
00:39:03,514 --> 00:39:05,057
They are good.
624
00:39:05,058 --> 00:39:06,139
I'm working a third one.
625
00:39:06,140 --> 00:39:11,146
Much difficulties, but at least I'm pushing, and I will be.
626
00:39:11,189 --> 00:39:12,816
I swear it.
627
00:39:26,246 --> 00:39:27,455
NEKES: It was completely new,
628
00:39:27,456 --> 00:39:31,752
leaving the frame and being part of the image.
629
00:39:31,753 --> 00:39:34,296
Some artists worked out of the frame,
630
00:39:34,297 --> 00:39:40,177
but nearly nobody was so radical as Eva has been.
631
00:39:44,392 --> 00:39:45,517
SEROTA: These aren't works that
632
00:39:45,518 --> 00:39:47,184
you've ever quite seen before.
633
00:39:47,185 --> 00:39:51,188
They're made for herself, they're not made for an audience.
634
00:39:51,189 --> 00:39:54,653
They're made in the same way as...
635
00:39:55,194 --> 00:39:59,116
her diaries were made, or her notebooks were made.
636
00:39:59,117 --> 00:39:59,658
She's exploring.
637
00:39:59,659 --> 00:40:01,993
You know? I mean, you see it in the work.
638
00:40:01,994 --> 00:40:06,206
You see her trying out different combinations.
639
00:40:40,327 --> 00:40:44,958
My parents were very fond of Eva and Tom's work.
640
00:40:45,458 --> 00:40:47,836
And they wanted to show.
641
00:40:49,252 --> 00:40:50,504
"They thought," Well, let's party together
642
00:40:50,505 --> 00:40:57,512
"and show the people what Eva and Tom had done in this year here in Kettwig."
643
00:41:08,524 --> 00:41:11,318
It was really an event.
644
00:41:11,319 --> 00:41:14,197
Oxenfest, as we called it, like ox parties,
645
00:41:14,198 --> 00:41:20,496
and where a whole ox was being put on a spit and then roasted.
646
00:41:22,372 --> 00:41:24,289
NEKES: It was a big exhibition.
647
00:41:24,290 --> 00:41:27,292
Tom Doyle was a star, internationally known
648
00:41:27,293 --> 00:41:30,547
with a big exhibition in Bern,
649
00:41:30,548 --> 00:41:33,718
and Eva was just a side show
650
00:41:34,261 --> 00:41:37,263
in a small garden house.
651
00:41:37,264 --> 00:41:40,643
But the people were interested in her work.
652
00:41:42,310 --> 00:41:43,812
HESSE: Show went well.
653
00:41:43,813 --> 00:41:44,312
I sold two.
654
00:41:44,313 --> 00:41:49,945
I will also show August 6th, in graphics room in Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf.
655
00:41:50,195 --> 00:41:53,321
PETZINGER: She came to Germany as a painter.
656
00:41:53,322 --> 00:41:56,450
Being in a world of new influences
657
00:41:56,451 --> 00:42:02,373
helped her to create her new universe of art,
658
00:42:02,374 --> 00:42:06,002
which was the point of no return, yeah?
659
00:42:06,003 --> 00:42:08,089
Now she was a sculptor.
660
00:42:08,090 --> 00:42:10,424
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
661
00:42:11,635 --> 00:42:15,305
CHARASH: Eva was in Germany almost an entire year
662
00:42:15,306 --> 00:42:18,975
before she went to discover her background.
663
00:42:18,976 --> 00:42:21,186
My father had given her information,
664
00:42:21,187 --> 00:42:25,066
names and addresses, and she sought them out.
665
00:42:28,069 --> 00:42:30,362
(TRAIN CHUGGING)
666
00:42:31,323 --> 00:42:34,575
She went to Hameln, where my mother was born.
667
00:42:34,576 --> 00:42:39,790
HESSE: We took train to Hameln, found house immediately.
668
00:42:40,373 --> 00:42:41,916
Very strange.
669
00:42:41,917 --> 00:42:46,462
Mrs. Wolfe, a neighbor, two of mom's school friends.
670
00:42:46,463 --> 00:42:51,678
Visit to all of the workers, former, of my grandfather.
671
00:42:54,598 --> 00:42:59,393
It's a weird experience, like a secretive mission,
672
00:42:59,770 --> 00:43:02,564
a new generation seeking the past.
673
00:43:02,565 --> 00:43:08,238
I, knowing next to nothing of my family, my grandparents.
674
00:43:10,406 --> 00:43:11,992
Off to Hamburg.
675
00:43:12,408 --> 00:43:14,410
Went to Isestrasse.
676
00:43:14,995 --> 00:43:15,996
Cried.
677
00:43:15,997 --> 00:43:19,917
CHARASH: She went to the place where we lived,
678
00:43:19,918 --> 00:43:23,086
and was turned away by someone at the door,
679
00:43:23,087 --> 00:43:25,422
which was very tough on her.
680
00:43:25,506 --> 00:43:28,091
JOHANN: To not let her in, let her see her home,
681
00:43:28,092 --> 00:43:28,593
I think was so terrible.
682
00:43:28,594 --> 00:43:34,514
So that only retrospectively can lead me to understand how awfully difficult
683
00:43:34,515 --> 00:43:37,603
it must have been for her to face her past again.
684
00:43:41,439 --> 00:43:46,279
HESSE: Dear Sol, just returned from H and H.
685
00:43:46,487 --> 00:43:48,989
Visited where I was born in Hamburg,
686
00:43:48,990 --> 00:43:51,618
in Hameln, house of my mother.
687
00:43:53,079 --> 00:43:54,788
Quite a trying scene.
688
00:43:55,206 --> 00:43:56,748
Tears all around,
689
00:43:56,749 --> 00:43:58,456
and much talk of those times
690
00:43:58,457 --> 00:44:01,461
when no one knew what was happening.
691
00:44:02,297 --> 00:44:04,463
I was the ghost from the past.
692
00:44:04,464 --> 00:44:07,718
Their guilt and all was just pouring out.
693
00:44:08,303 --> 00:44:10,304
On to better times and doings.
694
00:44:10,305 --> 00:44:11,223
(SEAGULLS SCREECHING)
695
00:44:11,224 --> 00:44:13,850
Yes, Sol, we are coming home.
696
00:44:23,485 --> 00:44:25,863
(TRAFFIC BUSTLING)
697
00:44:33,622 --> 00:44:39,878
That trip to Germany, with all the hazards, was empowering.
698
00:44:40,587 --> 00:44:45,802
I think she came back very, very satisfied
699
00:44:46,136 --> 00:44:49,180
that she really had taken off.
700
00:44:49,597 --> 00:44:54,561
HESSE: September 30th. Almost one complete in the U.S.
701
00:45:03,447 --> 00:45:04,946
Dear Arnhard, dear Isa,
702
00:45:04,947 --> 00:45:09,327
we are working hard and also very busy socially.
703
00:45:09,577 --> 00:45:12,663
The year in Kettwig, dear Arnhard, was more,
704
00:45:12,664 --> 00:45:15,959
much more than some help to both of us.
705
00:45:16,294 --> 00:45:19,504
The work we are now doing does show how much we grew
706
00:45:19,505 --> 00:45:23,926
and developed because of the beautiful year you gave us.
707
00:45:25,552 --> 00:45:26,553
LIPPARD: When Eva went to Germany,
708
00:45:26,554 --> 00:45:28,764
she was a sort of post-abstract expressionist.
709
00:45:28,765 --> 00:45:32,518
When she came back, she was a funny kind of surrealist.
710
00:45:32,519 --> 00:45:35,646
The work in Germany obviously had freed her up.
711
00:45:35,647 --> 00:45:37,564
And then she came back, and I think at that point
712
00:45:37,565 --> 00:45:40,693
she sort of fell under the influence of minimalism.
713
00:45:40,694 --> 00:45:41,778
I don't think anybody discouraged her
714
00:45:41,779 --> 00:45:44,073
from the strange little things she was doing in Germany,
715
00:45:44,074 --> 00:45:46,575
but the art world was going in a different direction
716
00:45:46,576 --> 00:45:49,579
and she intuitively picked up on it.
717
00:46:00,590 --> 00:46:01,800
When minimalism came along,
718
00:46:01,801 --> 00:46:03,676
there was a whole, new world.
719
00:46:03,677 --> 00:46:09,809
You know, no curves, no color, no anything. Just presence.
720
00:46:09,810 --> 00:46:11,352
It was a lot about presence.
721
00:46:11,353 --> 00:46:14,980
People said, "You're a minimalist. What does that mean?"
722
00:46:14,981 --> 00:46:19,652
And I said I just had to get rid of a lot of useless garbage
723
00:46:19,653 --> 00:46:22,740
and get right down to a few essentials.
724
00:46:23,367 --> 00:46:26,617
I think minimalism came out of abstract expressionism.
725
00:46:26,618 --> 00:46:30,958
It sort of toned down the, uh, the brush stroke.
726
00:46:31,623 --> 00:46:34,293
At the same time, there was the other tradition,
727
00:46:34,294 --> 00:46:37,797
people whose work was more personal and more intense,
728
00:46:37,798 --> 00:46:40,218
and perhaps more surrealist.
729
00:46:40,633 --> 00:46:44,388
Eva, of course, was a transitional figure, from a minimalist,
730
00:46:44,389 --> 00:46:48,393
her friends were all minimalists, but she was very personal.
731
00:46:48,394 --> 00:46:50,562
There was a lot of eroticism in her work.
732
00:46:50,563 --> 00:46:55,358
It was so warm and human and full of soul.
733
00:46:55,359 --> 00:46:58,069
HESSE: I feel so strongly that the only art
734
00:46:58,070 --> 00:47:01,698
is the art of the artist personally.
735
00:47:01,699 --> 00:47:05,659
My interest is in solely finding my own way.
736
00:47:05,660 --> 00:47:09,584
I don't mind being miles from everybody else.
737
00:47:10,208 --> 00:47:13,668
She did talk a great deal about eccentricity and absurdity,
738
00:47:13,669 --> 00:47:18,758
particular absurdity, that her life had been absurd,
739
00:47:18,759 --> 00:47:20,676
her life at present was absurd,
740
00:47:20,677 --> 00:47:24,974
and she wanted to get that into the work.
741
00:47:25,682 --> 00:47:27,310
HOLT: I just remember that wall
742
00:47:27,311 --> 00:47:30,229
where she had all those different pieces hung.
743
00:47:30,230 --> 00:47:34,610
I saw her rearranging one of those long, sausage pieces.
744
00:47:34,611 --> 00:47:39,696
And she was kind of high on the ridiculousness of it.
745
00:47:39,697 --> 00:47:45,538
Her life was so full of synchronistic oddities,
746
00:47:45,539 --> 00:47:49,958
and there's this sense that, well, we're just not in control.
747
00:47:49,959 --> 00:47:52,710
The universe is pulling on the strings
748
00:47:52,711 --> 00:47:57,050
and you might as well stand back and just enjoy it.
749
00:47:57,051 --> 00:48:00,429
LIPPARD: I look back on that period with Eva's work and think,
750
00:48:00,430 --> 00:48:03,723
"Oh, that was the preface to feminist art."
751
00:48:04,267 --> 00:48:07,478
HESSE: Certainly I've grown within myself.
752
00:48:07,479 --> 00:48:11,525
I think my hang-ups now are almost all related to Tom.
753
00:48:11,732 --> 00:48:15,905
DOYLE: We had two lofts on the Bowery.
754
00:48:16,738 --> 00:48:18,740
We lived at 134
755
00:48:18,741 --> 00:48:24,746
and my studio was at 135 Bowery, right across the street.
756
00:48:24,872 --> 00:48:27,626
I would... I've worked all the time.
757
00:48:27,833 --> 00:48:29,168
(JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING)
758
00:48:29,169 --> 00:48:30,753
(TRAFFIC BUSTLES)
759
00:48:31,505 --> 00:48:33,755
HESSE: It is now 12:30 a.m.
760
00:48:33,756 --> 00:48:39,221
I am alone, Tom never with me any longer.
761
00:48:39,222 --> 00:48:42,809
Carries on as always and runs around.
762
00:48:43,101 --> 00:48:44,977
He goes to openings and parties.
763
00:48:44,978 --> 00:48:48,771
But those things he attends never with me.
764
00:48:48,772 --> 00:48:51,775
DOYLE: She was very difficult, you know, in many ways.
765
00:48:51,776 --> 00:48:53,777
I wasn't the only bad person about the whole thing.
766
00:48:53,778 --> 00:48:59,661
It was like she was very high maintenance, you know?
767
00:49:00,911 --> 00:49:05,542
Christmas came and I bought this beautiful pipe.
768
00:49:05,791 --> 00:49:08,793
And I came home and Eva said,
769
00:49:08,794 --> 00:49:12,215
"How much did it cost?" I said, "35 bucks."
770
00:49:12,216 --> 00:49:14,260
She said, "Get out."
771
00:49:14,593 --> 00:49:18,765
And that was the words I was waiting for and I left.
772
00:49:19,725 --> 00:49:21,393
HESSE: All over.
773
00:49:21,808 --> 00:49:23,270
Tom is gone.
774
00:49:23,811 --> 00:49:25,605
He wants a divorce.
775
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,109
I messed all up. Begged.
776
00:49:29,443 --> 00:49:30,901
He's indifferent.
777
00:49:30,902 --> 00:49:35,991
I'm tired and again feel worn and used and taken advantage.
778
00:49:36,825 --> 00:49:38,160
That is the childish Eva,
779
00:49:38,161 --> 00:49:42,665
the one that is haunted by her past isolation and loneliness.
780
00:49:42,666 --> 00:49:45,833
The one abandoned by her mother who was sick
781
00:49:45,834 --> 00:49:49,923
and therefore not able to have done otherwise.
782
00:49:55,971 --> 00:49:57,724
CHARASH: That's hard.
783
00:49:57,973 --> 00:50:02,437
My mother was what we call today bipolar.
784
00:50:04,774 --> 00:50:08,193
HESSE: My mother was there, but not there.
785
00:50:08,902 --> 00:50:11,111
There, but not there.
786
00:50:11,112 --> 00:50:13,863
CHARASH: My mother had a very difficult time adapting.
787
00:50:13,864 --> 00:50:16,744
And then it came to a head at a certain point,
788
00:50:16,745 --> 00:50:23,000
and then she felt she was no longer able to care for us and she left.
789
00:50:24,586 --> 00:50:26,878
HESSE: I was shifted from home to home,
790
00:50:26,879 --> 00:50:29,341
and used to be terrified.
791
00:50:29,717 --> 00:50:31,133
CHARASH: It was the end of the war.
792
00:50:31,134 --> 00:50:34,763
And all along, my father had been working on getting
793
00:50:34,764 --> 00:50:37,808
my mother's parents out of Germany.
794
00:50:37,809 --> 00:50:39,434
But it all came to nothing.
795
00:50:39,435 --> 00:50:41,269
And when my mother got the notification
796
00:50:41,270 --> 00:50:47,652
that her parents were taken into the concentration camp and they had died,
797
00:50:47,653 --> 00:50:51,906
uh, she jumped from the roof.
798
00:50:55,829 --> 00:50:57,954
My father did not tell us.
799
00:50:57,955 --> 00:50:59,540
It was in the papers,
800
00:50:59,541 --> 00:51:02,917
and kids taunted my sister at school,
801
00:51:02,918 --> 00:51:05,213
and she refused to go to school.
802
00:51:07,923 --> 00:51:11,845
HESSE: I had tremendous fear, incredible fear.
803
00:51:11,846 --> 00:51:15,766
I had my father tuck my blankets in tight into my bed,
804
00:51:15,767 --> 00:51:19,895
which had bars at the bottom, which I would hold at night.
805
00:51:19,896 --> 00:51:20,480
And he would have to tell me
806
00:51:20,481 --> 00:51:24,192
that he'd be there to take care of me in the morning.
807
00:51:24,860 --> 00:51:27,696
CHARASH: Eva was ten when my mother died, exactly.
808
00:51:27,697 --> 00:51:29,865
That's exactly around her birthday time.
809
00:51:29,866 --> 00:51:34,077
And that's why January was the worst month of the year for her.
810
00:51:38,958 --> 00:51:43,128
Eva continued to be upset the years after my mother died.
811
00:51:43,129 --> 00:51:47,383
And at my stepmother's urging, they sought out a therapist
812
00:51:47,384 --> 00:51:50,970
and Eva started to see Dr. Helene Papanek.
813
00:51:52,014 --> 00:51:54,476
HESSE: Please, Dr. Papanek.
814
00:51:54,809 --> 00:51:56,310
You've got to help me.
815
00:51:56,311 --> 00:51:59,147
Or maybe soon I'll be with my mommy.
816
00:51:59,564 --> 00:52:03,025
I'll talk to you. I'll tell you all.
817
00:52:03,026 --> 00:52:04,486
I hope I can.
818
00:52:05,069 --> 00:52:09,782
SUSSMAN: She was suffering greatly from the circumstances
819
00:52:09,783 --> 00:52:10,867
of her childhood,
820
00:52:10,868 --> 00:52:16,415
and this therapy was absolutely essential to her.
821
00:52:21,630 --> 00:52:23,881
HESSE: I cannot stand the aloneness,
822
00:52:23,882 --> 00:52:27,009
because it represents abandonment.
823
00:52:27,260 --> 00:52:28,970
BROWN: She wasn't happy with Tom,
824
00:52:28,971 --> 00:52:31,473
and she wasn't happy without him.
825
00:52:31,474 --> 00:52:34,059
But then, she was working a lot
826
00:52:34,268 --> 00:52:35,645
and that
827
00:52:36,019 --> 00:52:41,275
masked her unhappiness somewhat.
828
00:52:42,528 --> 00:52:45,572
HESSE: All my stakes are in my work.
829
00:52:45,822 --> 00:52:48,032
I've given up in all else.
830
00:52:52,079 --> 00:52:55,038
I do feel I am an artist,
831
00:52:55,039 --> 00:52:57,126
and one of the best.
832
00:52:58,002 --> 00:52:59,712
I do, deeply.
833
00:53:10,391 --> 00:53:13,058
GOLDMAN: The power of her purpose
834
00:53:13,059 --> 00:53:17,857
was more important than what was going on in her life.
835
00:53:18,148 --> 00:53:20,985
HESSE: Finished two pieces today.
836
00:53:20,986 --> 00:53:22,361
I worked hard.
837
00:53:22,362 --> 00:53:25,824
GOLDMAN: She was crawling on the floor at times,
838
00:53:25,825 --> 00:53:27,909
because of the Tom business,
839
00:53:27,910 --> 00:53:30,120
and still the art went on.
840
00:53:32,331 --> 00:53:34,708
HESSE: Dear Isa, dear Arnhard.
841
00:53:34,709 --> 00:53:38,086
The last months have been very difficult.
842
00:53:38,254 --> 00:53:40,255
It's sad how things happen.
843
00:53:40,256 --> 00:53:42,215
Tom and I are separated.
844
00:53:42,216 --> 00:53:46,887
At the same time, very much has happened for both of us in our work.
845
00:53:46,888 --> 00:53:52,144
We both have exhibitions opening the same evening, March 1st.
846
00:54:02,322 --> 00:54:06,115
I went there to the Graham Gallery when she first showed,
847
00:54:06,116 --> 00:54:09,829
because I really wanted to see what she was doing.
848
00:54:09,830 --> 00:54:11,916
And I was just floored.
849
00:54:22,427 --> 00:54:25,430
She did this great work, Hang Up.
850
00:54:25,597 --> 00:54:27,807
It was like, so audacious.
851
00:54:27,808 --> 00:54:31,103
I mean it was such a leap for the work.
852
00:54:34,273 --> 00:54:37,902
And that's one of the great sculptures of that time.
853
00:54:37,903 --> 00:54:40,947
I mean it's just unbelievable.
854
00:54:41,657 --> 00:54:43,199
It is not a painting.
855
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,202
It is not a sculpture.
856
00:54:45,410 --> 00:54:47,328
It just is art.
857
00:54:47,329 --> 00:54:51,207
HESSE: Hang Up is the most important early statement I made.
858
00:54:51,208 --> 00:54:55,087
It was the first time my idea of absurdity,
859
00:54:55,088 --> 00:54:57,882
of extreme feeling came through.
860
00:54:58,299 --> 00:55:00,343
She used the sheets
861
00:55:01,176 --> 00:55:02,012
from my house.
862
00:55:02,013 --> 00:55:06,182
"She said," Rosie, do you have any sheets I could use?
863
00:55:06,350 --> 00:55:07,892
"Preferably blue."
864
00:55:07,893 --> 00:55:10,104
I said, "Sure, take the sheets."
865
00:55:10,105 --> 00:55:11,897
And she wrapped them,
866
00:55:11,898 --> 00:55:17,611
and there was a kind of sage-like, spiritual sense
867
00:55:17,612 --> 00:55:20,907
of someone using space that way.
868
00:55:21,491 --> 00:55:25,369
And I always... whenever I see it, I say, "Ooh, those are my sheets."
869
00:55:25,370 --> 00:55:26,747
(LAUGHING)
870
00:55:27,581 --> 00:55:29,205
HESSE: The whole thing is ludicrous.
871
00:55:29,206 --> 00:55:32,460
It's the most ridiculous structure that I ever made,
872
00:55:32,461 --> 00:55:35,548
and that is why it is really good.
873
00:55:37,592 --> 00:55:40,301
CHARASH: My father came to that gallery.
874
00:55:40,302 --> 00:55:43,806
He looked so stern and so unhappy.
875
00:55:43,807 --> 00:55:48,103
Knowing my father, he had to be proud of Eva to be in an exhibition.
876
00:55:48,104 --> 00:55:51,941
But I think he was just confused by the art
877
00:55:52,231 --> 00:55:54,402
and didn't understand it.
878
00:56:02,703 --> 00:56:05,245
I was pretty madly in love with Eva.
879
00:56:05,246 --> 00:56:11,252
And I've learned subsequently that a lot of guys were madly in love with Eva.
880
00:56:12,253 --> 00:56:13,672
She was very soulful.
881
00:56:13,673 --> 00:56:18,302
I'm not sure how orthodox or practicing Eva's family was,
882
00:56:18,303 --> 00:56:21,263
but her Jewishness was obvious.
883
00:56:21,681 --> 00:56:24,142
It's a spirituality
884
00:56:24,143 --> 00:56:27,980
and I think it expressed itself in Eva's art.
885
00:56:37,115 --> 00:56:40,910
HONIG: She was making these circles in grids.
886
00:56:40,911 --> 00:56:44,747
And I gave her this paper that was clay based,
887
00:56:44,748 --> 00:56:49,587
and she loved it, because it soaked the ink up in a certain way.
888
00:56:54,300 --> 00:56:58,303
They were exquisite and I've never forgotten.
889
00:56:58,304 --> 00:57:03,308
They said something to me that I wanted in my work.
890
00:57:09,275 --> 00:57:14,112
HESSE: Weather varied from 103 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
891
00:57:14,113 --> 00:57:16,365
Sol and I went to the Modern and movies.
892
00:57:16,366 --> 00:57:20,702
WAPNER:There was a very strong relationship between Sol and Eva.
893
00:57:20,703 --> 00:57:21,996
They had so much in common
894
00:57:21,997 --> 00:57:23,665
and cared for each other so much.
895
00:57:23,666 --> 00:57:24,707
And she expressed to me that,
896
00:57:24,708 --> 00:57:31,299
"It would be so nice if I could love Sol and if we could be together."
897
00:57:32,926 --> 00:57:36,679
HESSE:The days passed with the most unbearable heat.
898
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:38,723
I fear giving way.
899
00:57:39,140 --> 00:57:41,350
Without Sol, I would.
900
00:57:41,643 --> 00:57:44,687
BROWN:He adored her and never got tired
901
00:57:44,688 --> 00:57:49,192
of indulging her and being kind to her
902
00:57:49,193 --> 00:57:53,071
and being an inspiration.
903
00:57:53,072 --> 00:57:56,326
ANDRE: Eva was the love of Sol LeWitt's life.
904
00:57:57,202 --> 00:57:59,620
And Eva loved Sol.
905
00:57:59,621 --> 00:58:00,872
I once asked Eva, I said,
906
00:58:00,873 --> 00:58:03,040
"You know, Sol's a great guy."
907
00:58:03,041 --> 00:58:07,963
"He's a great artist and he loves you and you love him."
908
00:58:07,964 --> 00:58:09,379
"How come you never got together?"
909
00:58:09,380 --> 00:58:13,384
And she said, "You don't go to bed with your brother,"
910
00:58:14,346 --> 00:58:16,806
which was, to me, very touching.
911
00:58:17,308 --> 00:58:21,103
And I understood, you know, what she meant.
912
00:58:23,479 --> 00:58:25,397
HESSE: I am numb.
913
00:58:26,399 --> 00:58:28,068
Daddy is dead.
914
00:58:34,242 --> 00:58:35,993
CHARASH: My father was in Europe.
915
00:58:35,994 --> 00:58:37,745
He got sick and died.
916
00:58:37,746 --> 00:58:40,457
It was a nightmare for both of us.
917
00:58:43,127 --> 00:58:46,421
HESSE: Sol and I walked New York City today.
918
00:58:46,631 --> 00:58:49,008
There's not a thing I can do.
919
00:58:49,384 --> 00:58:52,426
CHARASH: Eva was devastated with my father's death,
920
00:58:52,427 --> 00:58:53,762
just totally devastated.
921
00:58:53,763 --> 00:58:57,975
And I think theirs was a real love relationship at that time.
922
00:58:57,976 --> 00:59:00,435
It was his Evachen.
923
00:59:00,687 --> 00:59:03,899
HESSE: I stood tall at my father's funeral.
924
00:59:04,359 --> 00:59:06,151
I was big inside,
925
00:59:06,152 --> 00:59:08,654
not the scared, helpless child.
926
00:59:09,529 --> 00:59:11,532
I loved my father.
927
00:59:11,950 --> 00:59:13,369
It showed.
928
00:59:14,619 --> 00:59:15,036
Daddy...
929
00:59:15,037 --> 00:59:18,455
your books you made for me are my thoughts of you.
930
00:59:19,707 --> 00:59:24,295
I would have liked you to know about the shows and articles.
931
00:59:24,296 --> 00:59:25,964
You would have been so pleased
932
00:59:25,965 --> 00:59:29,466
and proud and less scared for me.
933
00:59:29,467 --> 00:59:32,470
We were always too scared, you and I.
934
00:59:32,806 --> 00:59:34,641
We even shared that.
935
00:59:35,141 --> 00:59:39,397
WILLIAM: Please, always realize, dear Evachen,
936
00:59:39,854 --> 00:59:42,482
you will never be alone.
937
00:59:42,607 --> 00:59:46,695
Do not forget, I love you very much.
938
00:59:46,696 --> 00:59:51,368
And if you are strong enough to make me very happy,
939
00:59:51,575 --> 00:59:54,494
please try to be happy.
940
00:59:55,205 --> 00:59:56,496
Daddy.
941
00:59:57,207 --> 01:00:02,503
HESSE: I must now work even harder to be strong, get well.
942
01:00:02,879 --> 01:00:05,383
Yes, be happy.
943
01:00:08,635 --> 01:00:10,510
Started to work.
944
01:00:10,511 --> 01:00:11,513
Difficult.
945
01:00:11,514 --> 01:00:14,515
But I know how important it is now for me,
946
01:00:14,516 --> 01:00:19,314
and that it almost alone can again make me stand tall.
947
01:00:25,779 --> 01:00:27,530
Finished Laocoon.
948
01:00:27,865 --> 01:00:29,531
Cords everywhere.
949
01:00:29,532 --> 01:00:33,535
BROWN: She used this word "making it" all the time.
950
01:00:33,536 --> 01:00:36,750
She was so obsessed with making it.
951
01:00:39,085 --> 01:00:42,796
HESSE: Lucy wants me to do a big piece for show.
952
01:00:42,797 --> 01:00:44,925
Anything I want to do.
953
01:00:45,259 --> 01:00:46,886
I'm excited.
954
01:00:47,261 --> 01:00:49,763
LIPPARD: I was doing a show called Eccentric Abstraction.
955
01:00:49,764 --> 01:00:54,558
And I thought of it in some ways as a kind of vehicle for Eva's work.
956
01:00:54,559 --> 01:00:59,648
I was looking for something that wasn't cold, hard minimalism.
957
01:00:59,649 --> 01:01:01,276
I just wanted something else.
958
01:01:01,277 --> 01:01:05,530
And I realized later it was something feminist or female.
959
01:01:05,531 --> 01:01:08,492
I wanted to see these hard grids screwed up a little bit
960
01:01:08,493 --> 01:01:12,579
and messed with, and Eva was certainly doing that.
961
01:01:41,821 --> 01:01:45,614
PETZINGER: In the exhibition Eccentric Abstraction,
962
01:01:45,615 --> 01:01:49,662
Eva showed Metronomic Irregularity.
963
01:01:50,497 --> 01:01:53,624
And there it was a great surprise.
964
01:01:54,209 --> 01:01:57,962
It was her kind of minimalism.
965
01:01:57,963 --> 01:02:03,343
You have those rectangular, ordered systems.
966
01:02:03,344 --> 01:02:07,180
You have the chaos of those wires.
967
01:02:07,181 --> 01:02:13,480
And this contradiction is a very important thing in her work.
968
01:02:13,813 --> 01:02:16,566
SUSSMAN: She was able to learn
969
01:02:16,567 --> 01:02:18,901
all the lessons of the minimalists,
970
01:02:18,902 --> 01:02:22,321
and yet, take it into her own area,
971
01:02:22,322 --> 01:02:26,076
where issues of absurdity and humor
972
01:02:26,452 --> 01:02:29,205
and crudeness came in.
973
01:02:29,873 --> 01:02:31,707
LIPPARD: The show got a certain amount of attention
974
01:02:31,708 --> 01:02:35,669
and Hilton Kramer wrote about it in the New York Times.
975
01:02:36,087 --> 01:02:39,672
WAPNER: When the Timesreviewed it,
976
01:02:39,673 --> 01:02:42,676
it gave much more space
977
01:02:42,677 --> 01:02:45,138
to the men in the show
978
01:02:45,139 --> 01:02:46,680
and she was pissed
979
01:02:46,681 --> 01:02:49,683
and felt discriminated against.
980
01:02:49,684 --> 01:02:52,021
She felt she deserved much more space
981
01:02:52,022 --> 01:02:53,856
and much more attention.
982
01:02:53,857 --> 01:02:58,571
And I think it was an accurate assessment.
983
01:02:59,530 --> 01:03:00,364
HESSE: I am reading.
984
01:03:00,365 --> 01:03:02,490
Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex.
985
01:03:02,491 --> 01:03:06,453
I always felt that all women were up against it.
986
01:03:06,454 --> 01:03:08,372
Simone kind of agrees.
987
01:03:08,705 --> 01:03:13,002
"A fantastic strength is necessary, and courage."
988
01:03:13,170 --> 01:03:14,710
"But we'll make it."
989
01:03:14,711 --> 01:03:17,713
It was harder for women in lots of ways,
990
01:03:17,714 --> 01:03:21,718
just because of the way the art world is structured.
991
01:03:21,719 --> 01:03:25,849
Men got more encouragement and got more support.
992
01:03:28,811 --> 01:03:34,359
HOLT: Women weren't even seen, so that you were invisible.
993
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:37,735
Eva was doing this extraordinary work
994
01:03:37,736 --> 01:03:42,742
and being seen by a few people.
995
01:03:42,826 --> 01:03:44,743
So that broke some barriers,
996
01:03:44,744 --> 01:03:50,502
and I could see the cracks happening in the male dominated system.
997
01:03:51,419 --> 01:03:55,090
Her belief was simple.
998
01:03:55,549 --> 01:03:56,758
I'm an artist.
999
01:03:57,801 --> 01:03:59,678
And I want to be known as an artist.
1000
01:03:59,679 --> 01:04:05,727
Any time they tried to make her a woman artist, she got furious.
1001
01:04:06,352 --> 01:04:11,772
HESSE: The way to beat discrimination in art is by art.
1002
01:04:11,773 --> 01:04:14,776
Excellence has no sex.
1003
01:04:15,778 --> 01:04:19,115
December 23rd, 1966.
1004
01:04:19,116 --> 01:04:22,327
It is a fitting ending for another strange,
1005
01:04:22,328 --> 01:04:24,288
bewildering, sad...
1006
01:04:24,288 --> 01:04:27,292
and yet strangely productive year.
1007
01:04:27,500 --> 01:04:29,334
A fine abandonment.
1008
01:04:29,335 --> 01:04:31,004
And Daddy's death.
1009
01:04:31,879 --> 01:04:36,092
And now, on to work and other changes.
1010
01:04:39,638 --> 01:04:41,974
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
1011
01:04:42,433 --> 01:04:45,101
HESSE: January 1st, 1967.
1012
01:04:45,102 --> 01:04:47,145
I'm working well and eager to go on.
1013
01:04:47,146 --> 01:04:51,359
Might even be ready for first one-man show by next fall.
1014
01:04:51,901 --> 01:04:53,653
Tonight we meet at Smithson's.
1015
01:04:53,654 --> 01:04:57,575
Midnight. It will be his 28th birthday.
1016
01:04:58,825 --> 01:05:02,827
SMITHSON: We became part of a certain community that was around there.
1017
01:05:02,828 --> 01:05:06,585
Sol Lewitt was certainly very central to it.
1018
01:05:11,506 --> 01:05:17,053
HOLT: We hung out with Dan Graham, Mel Bochner and
1019
01:05:17,054 --> 01:05:20,846
Eva and Sol, and Carl Andre.
1020
01:05:20,848 --> 01:05:23,435
Went to each other's studios.
1021
01:05:23,436 --> 01:05:25,771
People were feeling their way along,
1022
01:05:25,772 --> 01:05:27,855
like nothing was clear, yet.
1023
01:05:27,856 --> 01:05:30,108
It was all in formation.
1024
01:05:30,109 --> 01:05:33,945
So having conversations and exchanges,
1025
01:05:33,946 --> 01:05:36,574
at that moment was powerful.
1026
01:05:36,575 --> 01:05:37,117
What do you mean by that?
1027
01:05:37,118 --> 01:05:39,369
I mean, you have to define yourself better than that.
1028
01:05:39,370 --> 01:05:41,037
You just can't throw words around.
1029
01:05:41,038 --> 01:05:42,372
You have to really be precise.
1030
01:05:42,373 --> 01:05:44,458
Oh, words don't mean anything. Words are...
1031
01:05:44,459 --> 01:05:46,335
Things are really happening in New York.
1032
01:05:46,336 --> 01:05:50,880
This is the time of Max's Kansas City and all these
1033
01:05:50,881 --> 01:05:53,926
artists were still hard drinking,
1034
01:05:53,927 --> 01:05:56,136
nightlife kind of people.
1035
01:05:56,137 --> 01:05:58,264
HESSE: We went to Max's Kansas City.
1036
01:05:58,265 --> 01:06:02,893
Carl, Andre and Mel had heated discussion until closing.
1037
01:06:02,894 --> 01:06:05,355
DAN GRAHAM: I think intellectually, she was quite brilliant
1038
01:06:05,356 --> 01:06:08,899
and underestimated by all her minimal art friends.
1039
01:06:08,900 --> 01:06:09,984
She was very, very ambitious
1040
01:06:09,985 --> 01:06:11,529
so she was looking at everybody's work.
1041
01:06:11,529 --> 01:06:14,073
Whereas the minimal artists, were pretty self-satisfied
1042
01:06:14,074 --> 01:06:16,284
that they had the answer.
1043
01:06:18,203 --> 01:06:21,913
LEWITT: She was very involved with the specific medium
1044
01:06:21,913 --> 01:06:23,458
that she was working with.
1045
01:06:23,459 --> 01:06:24,876
A wonderful thing of the '60s,
1046
01:06:24,877 --> 01:06:27,546
was, uh, Canal Street technology.
1047
01:06:27,547 --> 01:06:30,843
And so, I mean, she got into that.
1048
01:06:31,259 --> 01:06:33,720
(CAR HONKING)
1049
01:06:34,095 --> 01:06:37,348
HOLT: Canal Street was just a wonderland.
1050
01:06:37,349 --> 01:06:42,311
I loved walking up and down Canal Street, looking at all the materials.
1051
01:06:42,312 --> 01:06:46,941
And often the materials would lead you to an idea.
1052
01:06:47,777 --> 01:06:49,653
HONIG:It was like, shopping in Tiffany's,
1053
01:06:49,654 --> 01:06:53,157
except that Tiffany's had little rubber things
1054
01:06:53,158 --> 01:06:54,949
and you didn't know, what they were.
1055
01:06:54,950 --> 01:06:56,619
ROBERT: There was a rubber store.
1056
01:06:56,620 --> 01:07:00,123
There was stores that sold old shell casings.
1057
01:07:00,124 --> 01:07:01,416
Everything was down there.
1058
01:07:01,417 --> 01:07:03,669
It was part of being in Lower Manhattan.
1059
01:07:03,670 --> 01:07:05,462
I mean, Lower Manhattan was so great.
1060
01:07:05,463 --> 01:07:07,963
Trucks were going by, all the time and,
1061
01:07:07,964 --> 01:07:09,341
it had so many wonderful,
1062
01:07:09,342 --> 01:07:11,968
stimulating things going on there
1063
01:07:11,969 --> 01:07:13,970
that affected all of us, you know?
1064
01:07:13,971 --> 01:07:15,849
You know the closest you come to it
1065
01:07:15,850 --> 01:07:18,976
for me, now, is Home Depot. (CHUCKLING)
1066
01:07:19,311 --> 01:07:24,982
You know, I go in there and it's like, "Oh, look at all this stuff."
1067
01:07:24,983 --> 01:07:28,947
But it's not Canal Street. No, it isn't. It isn't.
1068
01:07:31,450 --> 01:07:33,910
HESSE: Spent morning, shopping on Canal Street.
1069
01:07:33,911 --> 01:07:38,998
Sol joined me. Must have spent $20 to $30.
1070
01:07:52,723 --> 01:07:54,724
HESSE: Friday, Canal Street.
1071
01:07:54,725 --> 01:08:00,857
Take magnets, try washers. Two wires and weights.
1072
01:08:08,029 --> 01:08:11,867
LEWITT: She said that she wanted to make her work ucky.
1073
01:08:11,868 --> 01:08:13,244
Not yucky, but ucky.
1074
01:08:13,245 --> 01:08:15,079
She had to do something with it that,
1075
01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:17,917
uh, made it feel good to her.
1076
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:21,042
GRAHAM: Eva was dealing with materials, that were debased.
1077
01:08:21,042 --> 01:08:22,504
They were industrial materials,
1078
01:08:22,505 --> 01:08:23,672
that were waste materials.
1079
01:08:23,673 --> 01:08:25,758
I think Eva just had a fascination, maybe with
1080
01:08:25,759 --> 01:08:29,051
the kind of junk culture that you could find in New York.
1081
01:08:29,051 --> 01:08:31,053
LEWITT:But, I mean, she took all these things
1082
01:08:31,054 --> 01:08:33,055
and made them so completely,
1083
01:08:33,056 --> 01:08:40,357
uh, her own that they lost all of their junky quality.
1084
01:08:42,149 --> 01:08:43,818
LIPPARD: I can see Eva just sort of
1085
01:08:43,819 --> 01:08:45,068
sitting there, with her materials,
1086
01:08:45,068 --> 01:08:47,656
almost like they were, it was another creature,
1087
01:08:47,657 --> 01:08:49,116
and working with them.
1088
01:08:49,117 --> 01:08:51,952
But not another creature, maybe herself
1089
01:08:51,953 --> 01:08:54,581
because they were so self-identified.
1090
01:08:54,582 --> 01:08:57,417
I mean, this was where she put a lot of her anxieties,
1091
01:08:57,417 --> 01:08:58,667
was into her art, I think.
1092
01:08:58,669 --> 01:09:00,586
I don't want to get too psychology
1093
01:09:00,587 --> 01:09:02,086
oriented on this because,
1094
01:09:02,087 --> 01:09:05,593
it's very unpopular now to do that. But...
1095
01:09:05,594 --> 01:09:08,093
But with Eva, it's almost impossible
1096
01:09:08,094 --> 01:09:09,888
not to think psychologically,
1097
01:09:09,889 --> 01:09:13,225
when you know her work, and her as a person.
1098
01:09:14,144 --> 01:09:16,103
HESSE: Friday, July 28th.
1099
01:09:16,104 --> 01:09:19,734
Called Donald Droll until midnight.
1100
01:09:19,942 --> 01:09:23,193
ROBERT: Donald Droll was more or less running Fischbach,
1101
01:09:23,194 --> 01:09:26,363
which was such a powerhouse gallery.
1102
01:09:26,365 --> 01:09:31,161
And he was very skillful at recognizing artists.
1103
01:09:31,162 --> 01:09:32,246
He had a great eye.
1104
01:09:32,247 --> 01:09:34,291
He had a great eye, yeah.
1105
01:09:35,375 --> 01:09:36,500
HESSE: Friday evening.
1106
01:09:36,501 --> 01:09:40,127
Donald Droll said, if I'm ready, I can do a show.
1107
01:09:40,129 --> 01:09:43,258
I can have the main large room this spring.
1108
01:09:43,259 --> 01:09:45,135
LIPPARD: And that was a big deal.
1109
01:09:45,136 --> 01:09:47,555
It was a huge opportunity.
1110
01:09:55,145 --> 01:09:58,566
HONIG:Eva had gorgeous, black, long hair.
1111
01:09:58,567 --> 01:10:03,155
She symbolically, cut all of her hair off.
1112
01:10:05,742 --> 01:10:08,202
It was gonna be another time in her life.
1113
01:10:08,202 --> 01:10:11,205
It was away from being this wife,
1114
01:10:11,206 --> 01:10:15,753
and it was all gonna be about her work.
1115
01:10:16,587 --> 01:10:19,005
HESSE:Friday, March 8th.
1116
01:10:19,006 --> 01:10:21,550
Dorothy B. Movie.
1117
01:10:32,854 --> 01:10:37,526
Factory for epoxy. Rubber or plastic.
1118
01:10:38,235 --> 01:10:40,277
Flexible durability.
1119
01:10:40,278 --> 01:10:43,532
GOLDMAN: She was always expanding,
1120
01:10:43,533 --> 01:10:45,367
going beyond what she knew.
1121
01:10:45,368 --> 01:10:47,120
That was her purpose.
1122
01:10:47,121 --> 01:10:51,205
HESSE: Silicone. 120 ccs, 20 ccs.
1123
01:10:51,206 --> 01:10:53,292
Silastex, 120 ccs.
1124
01:10:53,293 --> 01:10:57,965
SUSSMAN: A group called Experiments in Art and Technology
1125
01:10:57,966 --> 01:11:00,843
had come together, to bring artists
1126
01:11:00,844 --> 01:11:05,848
into the orbit of people using new technologies.
1127
01:11:05,849 --> 01:11:08,308
Eva Hesse was admitted to the group,
1128
01:11:08,309 --> 01:11:10,145
and she attended lectures
1129
01:11:10,146 --> 01:11:14,440
in the use of polymers and latex.
1130
01:11:14,441 --> 01:11:19,571
HESSE: One, liquid. Two, clear rubber.
1131
01:11:19,572 --> 01:11:24,325
Three, sets after 24 hours. Four...
1132
01:11:24,326 --> 01:11:25,661
Matter matters.
1133
01:11:25,662 --> 01:11:29,707
And I think it's really clear in Eva's work that,
1134
01:11:29,708 --> 01:11:32,250
the material manifestation of the form
1135
01:11:32,251 --> 01:11:37,256
comes out of an intense investigation of the matter.
1136
01:11:38,968 --> 01:11:40,719
HESSE: Tuesday, April 30th.
1137
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:45,100
Go to Arco, Canal Street, Aegis.
1138
01:11:45,683 --> 01:11:50,897
Aegis Reinforced Plastics was created specifically to
1139
01:11:50,898 --> 01:11:54,274
help artists create their particular things,
1140
01:11:54,275 --> 01:11:57,946
including people like Bob Morris and Tom Doyle,
1141
01:11:57,947 --> 01:11:59,279
and Rob Smithson.
1142
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:03,283
Bob Morris brought Eva in and showed her what you could do.
1143
01:12:03,284 --> 01:12:06,330
How'd fiberglass act, when it was saturated?
1144
01:12:06,331 --> 01:12:10,126
When it was hard, it would look like it was still soft.
1145
01:12:10,127 --> 01:12:13,838
That was one of the good things, because she liked soft.
1146
01:12:13,839 --> 01:12:15,965
I guess that we made a connection and
1147
01:12:15,966 --> 01:12:20,931
a couple of months later, we started working on her pieces.
1148
01:12:22,182 --> 01:12:23,724
The first piece I made for Eva,
1149
01:12:23,725 --> 01:12:25,518
was called Repetition Nineteen.
1150
01:12:25,519 --> 01:12:27,561
And she showed me some drawings.
1151
01:12:27,562 --> 01:12:31,482
Very simple line drawing of a cylinder.
1152
01:12:31,483 --> 01:12:35,320
She gave me dimensions and 19 of them.
1153
01:12:37,532 --> 01:12:40,033
We made up these cylinders,
1154
01:12:40,034 --> 01:12:42,745
coated them with fiberglass,
1155
01:12:44,372 --> 01:12:47,083
and let them harden up.
1156
01:12:47,084 --> 01:12:50,629
And then we had to peel out the newspaper.
1157
01:12:56,342 --> 01:12:59,596
She comes all the way out, to Staten Island
1158
01:13:02,767 --> 01:13:05,561
and, um, and she's horrified.
1159
01:13:05,562 --> 01:13:07,896
I mean, beyond horrified.
1160
01:13:07,897 --> 01:13:08,481
They were just too perfect.
1161
01:13:08,482 --> 01:13:14,279
"So I told her," Look, you make the buckets out of paper mache.
1162
01:13:14,280 --> 01:13:16,614
"I will make them exactly, the way"
1163
01:13:16,615 --> 01:13:19,743
"you've made them, in fiberglass."
1164
01:13:20,494 --> 01:13:23,370
So she set about to do it again.
1165
01:13:23,371 --> 01:13:25,372
And this time, with her hand,
1166
01:13:25,373 --> 01:13:28,377
she did something to each piece,
1167
01:13:28,378 --> 01:13:31,630
and it was not cylinders.
1168
01:13:31,631 --> 01:13:36,887
For her, the specificity was personal, it was physical,
1169
01:13:36,888 --> 01:13:41,101
and was her touch, her way.
1170
01:13:42,476 --> 01:13:44,393
JOHNS: A couple weeks later, she comes out.
1171
01:13:44,394 --> 01:13:47,396
She's got these 19 buckets and they're bigger, now.
1172
01:13:47,397 --> 01:13:51,861
And so we made these buckets, coated them with the resin,
1173
01:13:51,862 --> 01:13:56,910
put them on the table, put the light on and bing!
1174
01:14:07,087 --> 01:14:10,421
They were just like, this gorgeous thing.
1175
01:14:10,422 --> 01:14:11,423
She was ecstatic.
1176
01:14:11,424 --> 01:14:15,347
I mean, this was just the best thing she'd ever seen.
1177
01:14:15,428 --> 01:14:17,513
At that point, we were a team.
1178
01:14:17,514 --> 01:14:19,391
It was just let's do this,
1179
01:14:19,392 --> 01:14:21,684
and we're gonna make sculptures
1180
01:14:21,686 --> 01:14:24,437
and she was terribly excited.
1181
01:14:24,940 --> 01:14:30,112
She said, "Why not come over and live with me?" So I did.
1182
01:14:37,327 --> 01:14:39,913
She had a show coming up at the Fischbach.
1183
01:14:39,914 --> 01:14:43,457
And so we would wake up in the morning and it was,
1184
01:14:43,458 --> 01:14:45,086
"Let's do the art."
1185
01:14:45,087 --> 01:14:48,464
And we'd work all day and all night,
1186
01:14:48,465 --> 01:14:50,717
until we'd just collapse.
1187
01:14:51,051 --> 01:14:55,596
We made a session, which was basically a box
1188
01:14:55,597 --> 01:14:57,307
that we covered on the outside,
1189
01:14:57,308 --> 01:15:00,311
with a very thick layer of fiberglass.
1190
01:15:01,478 --> 01:15:03,814
And then we would drill holes
1191
01:15:03,815 --> 01:15:05,524
through this piece of fiberglass,
1192
01:15:05,525 --> 01:15:09,486
with 29,000 holes, we made in that.
1193
01:15:10,197 --> 01:15:13,490
And I helped her put the tubes in this thing.
1194
01:15:13,491 --> 01:15:16,537
GOLDMAN: Accession, it's called, the tubes?
1195
01:15:17,495 --> 01:15:19,496
Never seen anything so sexual
1196
01:15:19,497 --> 01:15:21,498
and fantastic in my whole life.
1197
01:15:21,499 --> 01:15:23,419
And Eva just would sit there,
1198
01:15:23,420 --> 01:15:26,922
and boom, and boom, and boom
1199
01:15:26,923 --> 01:15:32,510
in a meticulous, methodical rhythm.
1200
01:15:32,511 --> 01:15:34,513
In they went.
1201
01:15:34,724 --> 01:15:37,225
When you put your head inside,
1202
01:15:37,226 --> 01:15:39,518
you couldn't hear anything, outside.
1203
01:15:39,519 --> 01:15:42,148
And of course, she lived on the Bowery.
1204
01:15:42,149 --> 01:15:43,858
And it was noisy, and there's drunks
1205
01:15:43,859 --> 01:15:46,861
and there's yelling and there's all kinds of noise.
1206
01:15:46,862 --> 01:15:48,571
You couldn't hear a thing.
1207
01:15:48,572 --> 01:15:49,197
It was wonderful.
1208
01:15:49,198 --> 01:15:53,202
You'd go in there and it was just like being in a cave.
1209
01:15:53,534 --> 01:15:55,454
Her feeling was that the art
1210
01:15:55,455 --> 01:15:57,998
was the artifact of the process.
1211
01:15:57,999 --> 01:15:59,541
The art was in the making,
1212
01:15:59,542 --> 01:16:02,794
the artifact was what was left over.
1213
01:16:02,795 --> 01:16:07,467
It was just this wonderful time of just, creating art.
1214
01:16:07,468 --> 01:16:10,219
And I was madly in love with her.
1215
01:16:10,220 --> 01:16:12,847
Absolutely just, um...
1216
01:16:12,848 --> 01:16:15,267
I don't think she was madly in love with me.
1217
01:16:15,268 --> 01:16:18,937
I know she was infatuated with me, that's for sure.
1218
01:16:18,938 --> 01:16:21,231
There was no question about that.
1219
01:16:21,232 --> 01:16:25,321
Uh, but she was in love with her art.
1220
01:16:35,289 --> 01:16:38,582
HESSE: Tuesday, June 4th. Aegis.
1221
01:16:38,583 --> 01:16:43,839
Rubber. Four pints together. Tube plastic.
1222
01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:46,093
Give Doug this.
1223
01:16:47,260 --> 01:16:48,969
Sunday, July 7th.
1224
01:16:48,970 --> 01:16:52,723
Organic and inorganic polymers.
1225
01:16:52,724 --> 01:16:54,518
Chain polymers.
1226
01:16:54,519 --> 01:16:57,938
HOLT: She rubberized fabric, cheesecloth.
1227
01:16:57,939 --> 01:17:00,525
That was discovering a new process.
1228
01:17:00,526 --> 01:17:04,488
It wasn't something that was already there in the world.
1229
01:17:12,413 --> 01:17:13,913
HESSE:Monday, July 8th.
1230
01:17:13,914 --> 01:17:18,002
New work. Rubber, fiberglass.
1231
01:17:20,964 --> 01:17:27,554
I let her know that plastics and rubber are fugitive.
1232
01:17:27,555 --> 01:17:31,432
Rubber will last, the best, ten, 15 years.
1233
01:17:31,433 --> 01:17:33,393
And it gradually starts cracking
1234
01:17:33,394 --> 01:17:35,687
and it starts turning to dust.
1235
01:17:35,688 --> 01:17:38,773
She said, "Good. Let them worry about it."
1236
01:17:38,773 --> 01:17:40,648
Talking about the museum people.
1237
01:17:40,650 --> 01:17:45,073
"So what? I want what the effect is now."
1238
01:17:46,074 --> 01:17:48,657
HESSE: Sunday, October 27th.
1239
01:17:48,659 --> 01:17:51,621
Sans, complete, fini.
1240
01:17:51,622 --> 01:17:53,583
Turned out great.
1241
01:17:59,671 --> 01:18:03,800
Saturday, November 16th. Show.
1242
01:18:38,965 --> 01:18:41,550
HESSE: I would like the work to be non-work.
1243
01:18:41,550 --> 01:18:45,012
To find its way beyond my preconceptions.
1244
01:18:45,013 --> 01:18:49,017
To go beyond what I know, and can know.
1245
01:18:51,395 --> 01:18:53,522
It is something.
1246
01:18:55,523 --> 01:18:57,026
It is nothing.
1247
01:19:03,741 --> 01:19:05,742
TIMPANELLI: I went to the opening.
1248
01:19:05,743 --> 01:19:10,289
Ah! And I'd been looking at art since I was just a kid.
1249
01:19:10,290 --> 01:19:13,750
I saw work that I had never seen before.
1250
01:19:13,751 --> 01:19:19,049
And yet, as absolutely original as it was,
1251
01:19:19,050 --> 01:19:24,137
it was incredibly reflective of our time
1252
01:19:24,138 --> 01:19:29,103
and of all time, and of real feeling.
1253
01:19:35,402 --> 01:19:39,779
SEROTA:Eva's work arced her new sensibility.
1254
01:19:40,031 --> 01:19:42,825
It was distinctive.
1255
01:19:42,826 --> 01:19:45,537
It was her own.
1256
01:19:45,538 --> 01:19:49,790
Fragile, beautiful, tentative.
1257
01:19:50,166 --> 01:19:52,335
It was all those things that sculpture,
1258
01:19:52,336 --> 01:19:54,213
was not supposed to be.
1259
01:19:56,798 --> 01:19:58,258
HESSE:"Eva Hesse.
1260
01:19:58,259 --> 01:20:02,555
"This is a first one-man show of uncommon interest."
1261
01:20:02,556 --> 01:20:05,807
"Ms. Hesse's work is located uneasily,"
1262
01:20:05,808 --> 01:20:08,809
"but interestingly between two poles."
1263
01:20:08,811 --> 01:20:11,648
"The realm of highly rationalized form,"
1264
01:20:11,648 --> 01:20:15,987
"and the realm of surrealist dream objects."
1265
01:20:16,529 --> 01:20:18,947
We had about eight or nine shows,
1266
01:20:18,948 --> 01:20:20,824
we wanted to see on that day.
1267
01:20:20,825 --> 01:20:25,827
And the last one on the list turned out to be Eva Hesse.
1268
01:20:25,829 --> 01:20:28,624
And I walked into the Fischbach Gallery,
1269
01:20:28,625 --> 01:20:31,670
and I suddenly saw, the most beautiful things
1270
01:20:31,671 --> 01:20:34,839
I'd ever seen and the most fascinating.
1271
01:20:35,550 --> 01:20:38,260
TONY GANZ:There was this extraordinary work.
1272
01:20:38,261 --> 01:20:42,014
And Eva herself is there in the back room.
1273
01:20:42,015 --> 01:20:46,851
And she looks not unlike my sister Kate,
1274
01:20:46,852 --> 01:20:50,273
a fact which is not lost on him.
1275
01:20:50,273 --> 01:20:55,070
VICTOR:I was charmed and fell for her immediately.
1276
01:20:55,071 --> 01:20:56,279
Thought she was marvelous.
1277
01:20:56,280 --> 01:21:00,993
He decides to do something he hasn't done in many years,
1278
01:21:00,994 --> 01:21:03,871
which is to buy some work.
1279
01:21:03,872 --> 01:21:06,999
JOHNS: When the Ganzs bought some pieces,
1280
01:21:07,000 --> 01:21:10,044
she came back to the studio, and she said,
1281
01:21:10,045 --> 01:21:12,879
"They're gonna buy some of my pieces.
1282
01:21:12,880 --> 01:21:14,882
"They collect Picassos, also.
1283
01:21:14,883 --> 01:21:17,386
"That's all, me and Picasso." (LAUGHS)
1284
01:21:17,387 --> 01:21:19,389
It was just like, "Wow!"
1285
01:21:20,889 --> 01:21:24,143
She would come to dinner rather frequently,
1286
01:21:24,144 --> 01:21:26,980
and we always had a lovely evening.
1287
01:21:32,318 --> 01:21:33,529
HESSE: Sold four more drawings.
1288
01:21:33,530 --> 01:21:38,907
Whitney Spring Show, TIME Magazine arts section.
1289
01:21:38,909 --> 01:21:42,162
She was one of the artists in New York.
1290
01:21:42,163 --> 01:21:44,833
She was the only woman, basically,
1291
01:21:44,834 --> 01:21:47,041
that was in the group.
1292
01:21:47,043 --> 01:21:49,255
She was one of the boys.
1293
01:21:59,850 --> 01:22:04,270
She went into an extraordinary work mode.
1294
01:22:04,271 --> 01:22:06,857
I mean, she was extraordinarily productive
1295
01:22:06,858 --> 01:22:08,190
and beginning to emerge,
1296
01:22:08,191 --> 01:22:11,696
and get responses from places.
1297
01:22:11,943 --> 01:22:14,072
HESSE: So much is going on.
1298
01:22:14,073 --> 01:22:15,867
I had lots of success.
1299
01:22:15,868 --> 01:22:18,034
I'm asked to be in so many shows,
1300
01:22:18,035 --> 01:22:19,872
I can't keep up.
1301
01:22:24,084 --> 01:22:25,959
In October, I'll go to Europe,
1302
01:22:25,960 --> 01:22:29,046
have one man show at Gallery Ricka in Cologne.
1303
01:22:29,047 --> 01:22:33,261
For March, I'm preparing work for the Whitney.
1304
01:22:39,975 --> 01:22:43,312
Show includes Carl Andre, Robert Morris,
1305
01:22:43,313 --> 01:22:48,110
Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and me.
1306
01:23:00,707 --> 01:23:02,999
JOHNS:She was getting a lot of headaches.
1307
01:23:03,000 --> 01:23:04,628
She would get dizzy
1308
01:23:04,629 --> 01:23:07,464
and couldn't really function.
1309
01:23:07,465 --> 01:23:11,384
She'd be squinting and just this severe pain.
1310
01:23:11,385 --> 01:23:13,303
And I kept on saying to her, "Look",
1311
01:23:13,304 --> 01:23:18,809
"you've got to see a doctor." And she just avoided it.
1312
01:23:20,018 --> 01:23:21,270
LIPPARD: I remember the night,
1313
01:23:21,271 --> 01:23:23,021
and we were all there with Eva,
1314
01:23:23,022 --> 01:23:26,275
and we realized that something really was wrong.
1315
01:23:26,276 --> 01:23:29,029
Her headache was just terrible.
1316
01:23:32,825 --> 01:23:35,744
Previously, the psychiatrist had said it was physical,
1317
01:23:35,745 --> 01:23:38,372
and the physical doctors had said it was psychiatric.
1318
01:23:38,373 --> 01:23:41,040
And she was very ridden by anxieties,
1319
01:23:41,041 --> 01:23:44,546
and so it seemed possible, that was what was going on.
1320
01:23:44,547 --> 01:23:47,047
But at that point, she was really in pain
1321
01:23:47,048 --> 01:23:50,761
and I think we figured out, that this was
1322
01:23:50,762 --> 01:23:52,721
more than we thought it was.
1323
01:23:52,722 --> 01:23:55,056
(AMBULANCE SIREN WAILS)
1324
01:23:57,018 --> 01:24:00,939
HESSE:April 10th. I was admitted to New York Hospital,
1325
01:24:00,940 --> 01:24:03,568
to be examined, tested.
1326
01:24:04,485 --> 01:24:07,068
CHARASH: She was there for days,
1327
01:24:07,070 --> 01:24:10,072
and they couldn't find anything wrong.
1328
01:24:10,073 --> 01:24:13,075
And they did a spinal tap and thank God.
1329
01:24:13,076 --> 01:24:15,038
She would have died that day.
1330
01:24:16,665 --> 01:24:18,874
HESSE: My tumor was so enlarged,
1331
01:24:18,875 --> 01:24:21,084
it had no free space to move.
1332
01:24:21,085 --> 01:24:24,715
So it was tipping my brain over.
1333
01:24:24,966 --> 01:24:27,259
There wasn't much time.
1334
01:24:28,092 --> 01:24:31,513
Saw images, color flashes.
1335
01:24:31,514 --> 01:24:35,099
Very, very beautiful.
1336
01:24:35,100 --> 01:24:37,394
Was not afraid.
1337
01:24:37,395 --> 01:24:38,896
Wanted to touch,
1338
01:24:38,897 --> 01:24:41,189
connects with those with me.
1339
01:24:41,190 --> 01:24:46,237
I was very in touch with them, and they with me.
1340
01:24:46,238 --> 01:24:47,823
I spoke.
1341
01:24:47,824 --> 01:24:51,409
I smiled. I fantasized.
1342
01:24:51,410 --> 01:24:55,164
I had visions. I loved.
1343
01:24:55,290 --> 01:24:57,166
I could not speak enough.
1344
01:24:57,166 --> 01:25:02,798
I saw faces. I saw love, happiness.
1345
01:25:05,175 --> 01:25:07,218
CHARASH:She was operated and I come in
1346
01:25:07,219 --> 01:25:09,096
there, I can really still see it.
1347
01:25:09,097 --> 01:25:10,847
And she's sitting up in bed,
1348
01:25:10,848 --> 01:25:12,808
bandaged around the head,
1349
01:25:12,809 --> 01:25:15,352
and she's feeling fantastic.
1350
01:25:15,353 --> 01:25:18,356
And she just, now, the headache was gone
1351
01:25:18,357 --> 01:25:21,651
and she wasn't in pain, and she felt great.
1352
01:25:21,652 --> 01:25:24,738
And she said, "How lucky I am, they've got it all"
1353
01:25:24,739 --> 01:25:27,032
"and I'm just so lucky."
1354
01:25:27,032 --> 01:25:30,159
HESSE:I think back to where it all began.
1355
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:31,161
I was so ill.
1356
01:25:31,162 --> 01:25:35,164
I had signs, but I would not recognize them.
1357
01:25:35,165 --> 01:25:38,166
One can deny anything.
1358
01:25:38,168 --> 01:25:41,170
People thought when she got sick,
1359
01:25:41,171 --> 01:25:42,590
that the materials were to blame.
1360
01:25:42,591 --> 01:25:44,800
I mean, there were other people working with latex,
1361
01:25:44,802 --> 01:25:47,971
but she was, like I said, really into her materials.
1362
01:25:47,972 --> 01:25:52,017
So she was probably breathing them and, you know,
1363
01:25:52,018 --> 01:25:54,478
tasting them, even. Who knows?
1364
01:25:54,479 --> 01:25:57,856
JOHNS: I mean this is the beginning of fiberglass.
1365
01:25:57,857 --> 01:26:00,191
But it really is not that toxic,
1366
01:26:00,192 --> 01:26:02,361
and her tumor was far too large
1367
01:26:02,362 --> 01:26:06,574
to even think that, that small amount of exposure
1368
01:26:06,575 --> 01:26:11,204
that she had, gave her that brain tumor.
1369
01:26:12,373 --> 01:26:14,166
WAPNER: I often try to tease out,
1370
01:26:14,166 --> 01:26:16,168
was it the resins she worked with,
1371
01:26:16,169 --> 01:26:22,216
or was it just some genetic DNA fluke?
1372
01:26:25,012 --> 01:26:27,140
We'll never know.
1373
01:26:29,224 --> 01:26:33,729
HESSE:In the last year and now, since my illness,
1374
01:26:33,730 --> 01:26:36,481
I just want to live, let go,
1375
01:26:36,482 --> 01:26:40,111
call the past, past and have another try.
1376
01:26:40,112 --> 01:26:42,238
My God, anyone who knows my history,
1377
01:26:42,239 --> 01:26:46,243
who knows me, knows I deserve it.
1378
01:26:46,452 --> 01:26:47,243
It's true.
1379
01:26:47,244 --> 01:26:51,665
There's never been a time or scene that qualifies as norm.
1380
01:26:51,666 --> 01:26:55,129
Extremes on every side.
1381
01:26:57,923 --> 01:27:00,717
TIMPANELLI:She stayed with me in Woodstock.
1382
01:27:00,718 --> 01:27:04,722
She came with her bag of paints.
1383
01:27:05,223 --> 01:27:07,264
It was right after. She didn't have the
1384
01:27:07,265 --> 01:27:09,350
energy to go back to the studio to be alone
1385
01:27:09,351 --> 01:27:10,268
and to do sculpture.
1386
01:27:10,269 --> 01:27:14,023
So, she was going to do these paper paintings.
1387
01:27:17,486 --> 01:27:20,821
HESSE: Today is the third day I feel a little better,
1388
01:27:20,822 --> 01:27:25,282
a little stronger, a little more hopeful,
1389
01:27:25,284 --> 01:27:27,955
a little less sickness.
1390
01:27:28,122 --> 01:27:32,291
How grateful I am. I have much to do.
1391
01:27:32,418 --> 01:27:34,293
TIMPANELLI:We got up early in the morning.
1392
01:27:34,294 --> 01:27:38,841
We had muesli, a cup of tea, and then we'd go to work.
1393
01:27:38,842 --> 01:27:40,300
And the work was on the porch.
1394
01:27:40,300 --> 01:27:44,431
And it started to rain, and it never stopped.
1395
01:27:44,933 --> 01:27:47,351
But we worked every day.
1396
01:27:47,644 --> 01:27:50,771
I had never worked on art like that.
1397
01:27:50,772 --> 01:27:53,482
We just devoted ourselves to working
1398
01:27:53,483 --> 01:27:55,776
and she to making these paintings,
1399
01:27:55,777 --> 01:27:58,320
these beautiful paper paintings.
1400
01:28:03,244 --> 01:28:06,496
She scrapes through them, she made lines.
1401
01:28:06,497 --> 01:28:11,168
SUSSMAN:She was layering on washes of paint in the same
1402
01:28:11,169 --> 01:28:14,839
delicate way that she had handled her latex,
1403
01:28:14,840 --> 01:28:19,342
until the point where the consistency of the material
1404
01:28:19,343 --> 01:28:22,848
on the paper became right for her.
1405
01:28:22,849 --> 01:28:26,017
They have the ambition of paintings and they have been
1406
01:28:26,018 --> 01:28:29,856
compared to the late works of Mark Rothko.
1407
01:28:33,777 --> 01:28:36,070
TIMPANELLI:We'd also sometimes go shopping.
1408
01:28:36,071 --> 01:28:39,740
And she bought these worms, once, fistfuls.
1409
01:28:39,741 --> 01:28:44,162
And I asked her, I said, "Oh, what are you gonna do?"
1410
01:28:44,163 --> 01:28:45,039
She said, "I don't know, yet."
1411
01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:46,748
She said, "I'll play with them for a while."
1412
01:28:46,749 --> 01:28:50,168
And she'd look, and she would decide
1413
01:28:50,169 --> 01:28:51,921
what to do with something.
1414
01:28:52,046 --> 01:28:55,258
SUSSMAN: One of the great things she teaches us,
1415
01:28:55,259 --> 01:28:56,382
I think, is play.
1416
01:28:56,383 --> 01:29:00,305
That really the best thing any of us can do,
1417
01:29:00,306 --> 01:29:02,557
with materials, is play with them.
1418
01:29:02,558 --> 01:29:07,562
Play with them until the form begins to have an impact.
1419
01:29:07,563 --> 01:29:11,734
And she absolutely couldn't stop playing.
1420
01:29:11,735 --> 01:29:14,904
And I think it saved her life.
1421
01:29:14,905 --> 01:29:17,405
HESSE: The lack of energy I have, is contrasted
1422
01:29:17,406 --> 01:29:19,868
by a psychic energy, of rebirth,
1423
01:29:19,869 --> 01:29:22,494
a will to start to live again,
1424
01:29:22,495 --> 01:29:26,958
work again, be seen, love.
1425
01:29:26,959 --> 01:29:30,338
I fight sleep to respond to this real excitement
1426
01:29:30,339 --> 01:29:34,423
that is frustrated because there is little I can do.
1427
01:29:34,424 --> 01:29:37,345
ROBERT: Oh, it would be so easy to give up and say,
1428
01:29:37,346 --> 01:29:39,805
"I can't deal with all of these negative things,"
1429
01:29:39,806 --> 01:29:41,391
"I can't think about my work,"
1430
01:29:41,392 --> 01:29:45,519
"so I'm just going to concentrate on my medical problems."
1431
01:29:45,520 --> 01:29:49,273
But Eva insisted on having it all.
1432
01:29:49,275 --> 01:29:50,442
SYLVIA:I think she did it because
1433
01:29:50,443 --> 01:29:52,443
she didn't know what else to do.
1434
01:29:52,445 --> 01:29:55,990
Made her feel alive. It made her feel alive, right.
1435
01:29:55,991 --> 01:29:58,159
Her chance to be a great artist
1436
01:29:58,160 --> 01:29:59,619
was on her, and she knew it.
1437
01:29:59,620 --> 01:30:01,287
She knew she was doing really good work.
1438
01:30:01,288 --> 01:30:04,124
And of course, everybody was being very supportive, too.
1439
01:30:04,125 --> 01:30:07,710
You know, a lot of very well known artists, you know,
1440
01:30:07,711 --> 01:30:10,214
were very fond of her and really told her
1441
01:30:10,215 --> 01:30:13,217
this is great, keep going, this is wonderful.
1442
01:30:13,218 --> 01:30:14,386
So it was, in a funny way,
1443
01:30:14,387 --> 01:30:17,471
it was the great time of her life, I think.
1444
01:30:21,476 --> 01:30:24,521
JOHNS: She came back to the Bowery, and she called me,
1445
01:30:24,522 --> 01:30:29,151
and it was just, "Let's go, let's get to work."
1446
01:30:29,152 --> 01:30:33,365
Then we started to do that sculpture right after.
1447
01:30:37,119 --> 01:30:37,827
There was so much energy.
1448
01:30:37,829 --> 01:30:40,330
We were giggling and having this wonderful time.
1449
01:30:40,331 --> 01:30:42,374
The stuff was dripping, all over the place.
1450
01:30:42,375 --> 01:30:46,501
And this just, this wonderful cobwebby kind of thing
1451
01:30:46,502 --> 01:30:47,504
all across the room.
1452
01:30:47,505 --> 01:30:50,007
We had a rough time, getting around it.
1453
01:30:50,008 --> 01:30:52,843
HESSE: Climbing around, getting things up,
1454
01:30:52,844 --> 01:30:55,511
moved about, around and hung.
1455
01:30:55,512 --> 01:30:58,850
Four hands changing, manipulating changes.
1456
01:30:58,851 --> 01:31:01,518
Things to allow, things to happen.
1457
01:31:01,519 --> 01:31:05,732
Suspended hangings enabling themselves to continue,
1458
01:31:05,733 --> 01:31:08,193
connect and multiply.
1459
01:31:13,409 --> 01:31:16,286
GOLDMAN: She took that feeling,
1460
01:31:16,287 --> 01:31:19,663
right after her cancer operation.
1461
01:31:19,664 --> 01:31:22,541
The scars and the wearing of the wigs
1462
01:31:22,541 --> 01:31:27,466
and all that it meant, now she had vanity.
1463
01:31:28,050 --> 01:31:29,841
Eva had vanity.
1464
01:31:29,842 --> 01:31:34,806
So she took it all and put it into that piece.
1465
01:31:35,098 --> 01:31:39,269
She had this horrible wig from Sassoon.
1466
01:31:39,270 --> 01:31:41,561
But she would laugh about it.
1467
01:31:41,562 --> 01:31:43,606
I do remember visiting her in the hospital
1468
01:31:43,607 --> 01:31:45,566
and having her whip off her wig
1469
01:31:45,567 --> 01:31:46,568
with great pride and say,
1470
01:31:46,568 --> 01:31:48,987
"Look what I look like bald." (LAUGHING)
1471
01:31:48,988 --> 01:31:51,491
She thought it was quite funny.
1472
01:31:51,492 --> 01:31:52,907
In such a hard year,
1473
01:31:52,909 --> 01:31:54,410
with so many operations
1474
01:31:54,411 --> 01:31:56,329
and so many things going wrong,
1475
01:31:56,330 --> 01:32:02,211
um, we had a lot of good times. Amazing!
1476
01:32:02,212 --> 01:32:04,922
And I really credit that to something,
1477
01:32:04,923 --> 01:32:06,465
that I was just doing
1478
01:32:06,466 --> 01:32:10,637
and she did naturally, was to live in the moment.
1479
01:32:13,474 --> 01:32:17,559
HESSE:There certainly is the desire to write and work.
1480
01:32:17,561 --> 01:32:18,978
I can't get started.
1481
01:32:18,979 --> 01:32:22,983
Days pass. I do so very little.
1482
01:32:24,609 --> 01:32:27,946
I did have a tape interview with Cindy Nemser.
1483
01:32:27,947 --> 01:32:30,492
Three different days.
1484
01:32:30,616 --> 01:32:34,497
(NEMSER ON TAPE)Oh, I had a good question for you.
1485
01:32:34,663 --> 01:32:36,622
(SPEAKING)
1486
01:32:38,875 --> 01:32:40,794
(HESSE SPEAKING)
1487
01:33:23,466 --> 01:33:27,428
SUSSMAN: Untitled Rope Piece is the next to last
1488
01:33:27,429 --> 01:33:28,677
major piece of sculpture
1489
01:33:28,678 --> 01:33:30,680
that Eva Hesse, made in her life.
1490
01:33:30,681 --> 01:33:33,683
And it's quite possibly, her masterpiece.
1491
01:33:33,684 --> 01:33:35,645
She describes making this piece
1492
01:33:35,646 --> 01:33:37,687
as being a kind of choreography.
1493
01:33:37,688 --> 01:33:42,443
She was dipping the rope, into buckets of latex,
1494
01:33:42,445 --> 01:33:44,279
and then working with an assistant
1495
01:33:44,280 --> 01:33:48,699
and hanging it from the rafters of her studio.
1496
01:33:48,700 --> 01:33:54,707
So it's serendipity of taking a found material,
1497
01:33:54,708 --> 01:33:59,711
processing that, and letting gravity do its thing.
1498
01:33:59,712 --> 01:34:03,258
HESSE:Hung irregularly, tying knots as connections,
1499
01:34:03,259 --> 01:34:06,470
really letting it go, as it will,
1500
01:34:06,471 --> 01:34:08,388
allowing it to determine more
1501
01:34:08,389 --> 01:34:10,723
of the way it completes itself.
1502
01:34:10,724 --> 01:34:17,732
Non forms, non planned, non art, non nothing.
1503
01:34:27,118 --> 01:34:31,665
SEROTA:She was using her own body, her own experience,
1504
01:34:31,666 --> 01:34:37,421
dealing with the issues of her own mortality.
1505
01:34:37,753 --> 01:34:40,508
Coming to terms with that.
1506
01:34:43,760 --> 01:34:45,844
CHARASH: It was not much longer after that,
1507
01:34:45,846 --> 01:34:48,139
that she was rushed to New York Hospital,
1508
01:34:48,141 --> 01:34:50,809
because she was in excruciating pain.
1509
01:34:51,353 --> 01:34:53,981
HESSE:It is time again.
1510
01:34:54,314 --> 01:34:57,775
I have another brain tumor.
1511
01:34:58,026 --> 01:35:01,405
CHARASH:She was operated, on March 29th.
1512
01:35:01,406 --> 01:35:04,074
It was that surgery, did have an effect.
1513
01:35:04,075 --> 01:35:07,704
She did lose it after that surgery.
1514
01:35:07,705 --> 01:35:10,998
The decision was made by Helen
1515
01:35:10,999 --> 01:35:16,796
not to tell Eva that she was sick and going to die.
1516
01:35:17,005 --> 01:35:20,008
TIMPANELLI:I was there when she asked the doctor,
1517
01:35:20,009 --> 01:35:21,843
was this going to come back again?
1518
01:35:21,844 --> 01:35:23,219
We were holding hands.
1519
01:35:23,221 --> 01:35:25,804
And he said, "Yes, this is the kind of tumor"
1520
01:35:25,805 --> 01:35:27,599
"that might come back again."
1521
01:35:27,600 --> 01:35:29,059
(MUTTERS INDISTINCTLY)
1522
01:35:29,059 --> 01:35:30,645
That was it. She knew.
1523
01:35:30,646 --> 01:35:33,815
People said, "Oh, she didn't know." Of course she knew.
1524
01:35:34,483 --> 01:35:37,818
HESSE:I knew. No fear.
1525
01:35:37,818 --> 01:35:40,447
I did not fear death.
1526
01:35:40,448 --> 01:35:44,285
I knew it was there, could be.
1527
01:35:44,827 --> 01:35:47,038
But I did not fear.
1528
01:35:50,751 --> 01:35:53,377
TIMPANELLI:When she was in the hospital the third time,
1529
01:35:53,378 --> 01:35:54,796
I went to visit.
1530
01:35:54,797 --> 01:35:55,798
She was feeling better.
1531
01:35:55,799 --> 01:35:58,840
She was sitting up. She had a newsprint pad
1532
01:35:58,841 --> 01:36:01,594
and she was making something.
1533
01:36:01,596 --> 01:36:03,055
And she said, "Look, what do you think?"
1534
01:36:03,056 --> 01:36:05,848
I said, "They look like a bunch of feet. What is that?"
1535
01:36:05,849 --> 01:36:06,517
And she laughed. She says,
1536
01:36:06,518 --> 01:36:09,852
"Oh, I didn't think of... Oh, they're feet. Isn't that wonder..."
1537
01:36:09,853 --> 01:36:13,442
And we laughed and she made a little model.
1538
01:36:16,153 --> 01:36:19,864
And then, of course, she made that great sculpture.
1539
01:36:48,146 --> 01:36:50,564
JOHNS: She was very sick at that point
1540
01:36:50,565 --> 01:36:51,941
and she couldn't work.
1541
01:36:51,942 --> 01:36:56,153
But she had a couple of students that were star pupils,
1542
01:36:56,154 --> 01:36:58,156
and they made the piece.
1543
01:37:03,912 --> 01:37:05,748
TIMPANELLI:They put them in too much of an order.
1544
01:37:05,749 --> 01:37:07,999
She said, "Oh, I don't want them in that order."
1545
01:37:08,000 --> 01:37:10,504
She wanted more absurd.
1546
01:37:11,213 --> 01:37:14,757
She had a show at the Steuben Glass,
1547
01:37:14,758 --> 01:37:16,925
on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.
1548
01:37:16,925 --> 01:37:21,931
The Seven Poleswere in that show, and at the same time,
1549
01:37:22,225 --> 01:37:24,769
she was the cover of Artforum.
1550
01:37:25,061 --> 01:37:27,937
Contingent was on the cover of Artforum.
1551
01:37:27,938 --> 01:37:32,653
And that was at the time when she was really not copasetic.
1552
01:37:32,778 --> 01:37:33,654
We cut it out.
1553
01:37:33,655 --> 01:37:36,947
We scotch taped it across from her bed.
1554
01:37:36,948 --> 01:37:41,287
And at one point, she says, "That. That's me."
1555
01:37:49,713 --> 01:37:53,965
HESSE: I am not unhappy, not at all.
1556
01:37:53,966 --> 01:37:56,803
I look at the past three-and-a-half years
1557
01:37:56,804 --> 01:37:59,181
with a kind of amazement.
1558
01:37:59,182 --> 01:38:01,974
All that has come to pass.
1559
01:38:01,975 --> 01:38:05,396
My changes outside and inside.
1560
01:38:07,106 --> 01:38:08,982
I can be proud.
1561
01:38:10,318 --> 01:38:16,365
CHARASH: Eva died on May 29th, 1970, a Friday.
1562
01:38:16,366 --> 01:38:19,036
She was 34 years old.
1563
01:38:23,999 --> 01:38:27,169
LEWITT: Dear Grace, I received a telegram
1564
01:38:27,170 --> 01:38:28,796
from Helen about Eva's death
1565
01:38:28,797 --> 01:38:31,005
when I arrived here Saturday.
1566
01:38:31,467 --> 01:38:33,007
I am so sad.
1567
01:38:33,008 --> 01:38:34,844
You must be, too.
1568
01:38:35,011 --> 01:38:39,517
She was a good friend, a best friend for both of us.
1569
01:38:39,726 --> 01:38:41,016
It still hasn't hit home, because
1570
01:38:41,017 --> 01:38:43,269
I'm not there to see and talk to her.
1571
01:38:43,270 --> 01:38:46,357
When I realize that it could never happen again,
1572
01:38:46,358 --> 01:38:48,693
I'll be heartbroken.
1573
01:38:50,362 --> 01:38:52,029
Love, Sol.
1574
01:39:27,443 --> 01:39:31,447
CHARASH:Despite the fact that Eva Hesse has had exhibitions
1575
01:39:31,448 --> 01:39:35,035
throughout the world, this is more special,
1576
01:39:35,036 --> 01:39:38,538
perhaps more emotional, because this is the city
1577
01:39:38,539 --> 01:39:41,041
where Eva and I were born.
1578
01:40:05,108 --> 01:40:08,696
PHYLLIDA BARLOW: I first encountered Eva Hesse's work,
1579
01:40:08,697 --> 01:40:12,700
and it was like feeding a starving person.
1580
01:40:12,701 --> 01:40:17,457
It was exactly what I had been waiting for.
1581
01:40:18,958 --> 01:40:21,376
She's telling me yet again,
1582
01:40:21,377 --> 01:40:23,880
the work can come from you.
1583
01:40:23,880 --> 01:40:28,132
And it has this deep sense of intimacy and this closeness.
1584
01:40:28,133 --> 01:40:32,348
You can still feel the presence of the act of making.
1585
01:40:32,556 --> 01:40:35,433
The artist is there, embedded
1586
01:40:35,434 --> 01:40:38,144
in what is, what you're looking at.
1587
01:40:41,733 --> 01:40:44,777
It's one of the most exciting takes on painting,
1588
01:40:44,778 --> 01:40:47,362
that I've seen in the last few years.
1589
01:40:47,364 --> 01:40:49,573
It's great to see something so material
1590
01:40:49,574 --> 01:40:52,452
and so bright and captivating.
1591
01:40:55,873 --> 01:40:57,582
LIPPARD:She's part of history, now. I mean,
1592
01:40:57,583 --> 01:40:59,794
she is somebody that young artists
1593
01:40:59,795 --> 01:41:03,170
will always know about, which is wonderful.
1594
01:41:03,171 --> 01:41:07,885
SEROTA: I don't think the work has yet been fully digested.
1595
01:41:07,886 --> 01:41:10,305
It's still full of surprises.
1596
01:41:11,306 --> 01:41:13,474
There's plenty to pull out of it.
1597
01:41:13,475 --> 01:41:19,148
So I think the inference will continue to grow.
1598
01:41:19,148 --> 01:41:24,487
The ripples will keep coming out of Ringaround Arosie.
1599
01:41:35,206 --> 01:41:39,545
In 1972, the Guggenheim mounted a memorial exhibition.
1600
01:41:39,546 --> 01:41:42,799
And it was incredible. It was the whole Guggenheim.
1601
01:41:48,596 --> 01:41:52,224
I don't think all of us realized how good that work was.
1602
01:41:52,225 --> 01:41:55,770
I mean, you know, it was five years' work.
1603
01:41:55,771 --> 01:41:57,228
I had a show at the Guggenheim
1604
01:41:57,230 --> 01:41:59,150
of approximately five years' work.
1605
01:41:59,151 --> 01:42:02,318
And it was one ring around the museum, you know?
1606
01:42:03,236 --> 01:42:05,740
When you see the volume of what.
1607
01:42:05,741 --> 01:42:09,242
Eva was able to accomplish in that period of time,
1608
01:42:09,243 --> 01:42:10,996
it makes you realize
1609
01:42:10,996 --> 01:42:14,166
what you're able to do in five years.
1610
01:42:15,543 --> 01:42:18,252
GOLDMAN: Everything that happened to her,
1611
01:42:18,253 --> 01:42:20,880
good or bad, empowered her.
1612
01:42:20,882 --> 01:42:26,261
That's the magnificence of art.
1613
01:42:32,268 --> 01:42:34,562
WAPNER:I remember there were about
1614
01:42:34,563 --> 01:42:38,273
three or four of us, sitting around talking.
1615
01:42:38,485 --> 01:42:41,570
And she was describing her work
1616
01:42:41,571 --> 01:42:44,949
and how ephemeral it was,
1617
01:42:44,950 --> 01:42:49,204
and how she wasn't concerned with its lasting.
1618
01:42:49,205 --> 01:42:52,289
And that the materials might degrade
1619
01:42:52,290 --> 01:42:54,416
was part of the package.
1620
01:42:54,418 --> 01:42:59,255
And she said, "See this glass?"
1621
01:42:59,257 --> 01:43:04,637
And she threw it against the fireplace and it smashed.
1622
01:43:04,638 --> 01:43:08,600
And she said, "That's how my work is."
1623
01:43:10,309 --> 01:43:12,521
HESSE:Life doesn't last.
1624
01:43:16,150 --> 01:43:18,945
Art doesn't last.
1625
01:43:24,034 --> 01:43:26,537
It doesn't matter.
119641
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