Hannah Wilke: Gestures

"Throughout her career, Hannah Wilke dealt with issues of feminism and femininity. She began her career as a sculptor during the 1960’s.
Wilke always appeared naked in her performances. Gestures consists of four segments in which segments in which Wilke stares directly in the camera. The artist rubs and pulls at her face, repeating a series of movements, which result in the same poses and facial expressions over and over again. There are extreme close ups. She kneads and pulls at her skin as if it were sculptural material. Often her gestures – rubbing her hands over her face, smiling so hard that she appears to be grimacing, sticking out her tongue, take on a loaded significance when seen in the context of her gender performance (www.artnews.org/gallery)."

In this video, Wilke is using her face as a pliable material in which she molds into different shapes and expressions. She is using her face as a canvas for this video titled Gestures. She is also a woman, and typically women wouldn’t necessarily stretch and distort their skin in the same manner as Wike. The face of a woman is usually seen as beautiful; women take the time put perfectly places makeup and do their hair. Never put the skin on their face through the torment that Wilke does.

Feminist art from the 70’s is in the art world is an interest but has always been an area that has been someone “embarrassing,” when received outside of feminist audiences.

“While Wilke’s statement that she wants to make objects rather than be one can be carried over to the use of her own body as a material, women artists using the female body always risk, regardless of humor, being accused of narcissim and not being taken seriously (www.artmonthly.com).”