This opening of Hannah Wilke will take place on September 8th, 2007 - but I’m planning to attend because I studied with Hannah Wilke in 1975-76 while I was taking courses at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and I ran into her at the Guggenheim a year or two before she died (Hannah Wilke died in 1993).
I remember Hannah as a handsome woman who did a lot of erotic sculpture. I was invited to her studio a couple of times when I was in her sculpture class at SVA.
While I never really related to the strong feminist element of her work I liked her as a person … and while I didn’t know her well, she touched my life and that usually means to me ..that I should show up at an opening of hers and try to understand what her life was about, especially the end of it - which must have been painful.
“…The Ronald Feldman Gallery will exhibit Hannah Wilke’s Intra-Venus Tapes, a two-hour video installation on sixteen monitors, shot and planned during the last two and a half years of her life and completed since her death from lymphoma in 1993.Producer and participant: Donald Goddard
Technical producer and sound editor: John Carlson
Technical Advisor: Thomas J. Veltre
Other works by Hannah Wilke will also be exhibited.”
I met Hans Viets and his wife Lauren Viets for Brunch in Park Slope last Sunday; I had been in communication with Hans Viets since earlier this year when I tried, unsuccessfully, to set up a meeting between Hans and Fred Storehouse while the Viets were living in Milwaukee.
I took a short video, above, of our lunch meeting (just to give you a flavor of what our meeting); it was nice meeting both of them.
Hans gave me a copy of his latest Artists’ Catalog which has some fantastic work in it. I opened up the catalog and was immediately struck by his Planet Plant painting and Figure 7, along with his engineering style drawings that remind me, sorta, of Leonardo.
One of the things that struck me about Hans Viets is his dedication to quality in his work, a need to put craft and time into it, to not overproduce it.
The Viets just moved back to New York and I was interested how much they’ve traveled, lived and was part of the art community in Germany and Milwaukee and Williamsburg Brooklyn (he worked with some well known artists, also at the Dia Art Foundation in the past).  I also showed Hans Brooklyn Artists Gym in case he was interested in a temporary studio space.
I’m looking forward to seeing the Viets again at some future Art Opening. It’ll also be interesting to see how Hans Viets work changes now he’s back in New York.  I get the impression that life was slower in Milwaukee and gave, perhaps, more time to focus of work.  Having lived in the Midwest in the early / mid eighties (Minneapolis), I know that to be true (and the Midwest can be a lot colder in Winter than NYC).
I took this video at the Museum of Modern Art and soon after - it really accompanies my earlier post on Meeting Paul Steiner in a cafe on 57th Street that I wrote last week - but I didn’t get a chance till last night to process and upload the video.
I found it hard to take anything much at MOMA - it used not to be like this - I’m planning to go back to the Metropolitan Friday night, I hope I have better luck this time than last. We’ll see.
Anyway, here’s the footage from last week’s visit to MOMA - what little of it I have:
