Gestures by Hannah Wilke, 1974, © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon, and Andrew Scharlatt, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stefanie Graf
May 29, 2023
TheColelector.com

Hannah Wilke explored feminist ideas through several mediums such as sculpture, performance, video, and photography. Objects looking like vulvas became her signature artwork. She used her body in performances, videos, and photos which were criticized by some feminists. Wilke died of lymphoma when she was only in her early fifties. She documented her final years, the illness, and its treatment through photos, videos, and other mediums.

Hannah Wilke was diagnosed with cancer in 1987. She struggled with the illness until she died of lymphoma on January 28, 1993, in Houston, Texas. She documented the effects cancer and chemotherapy had on her body in her last series titled Intra-Venus. Her husband Donald Goddard took the photos of Wilke for the series.

While the artist had been accused of flaunting her attractiveness in her earlier works, she defied this notion in her Intra-Venus series which is a testament to the deterioration of the body caused by illness and chemotherapy. Wilke once responded to criticism by saying: People often give me this bullshit of, ‘What would you have done if you weren’t so gorgeous?’ What difference does it make? . . . Gorgeous people die as do the stereotypical ‘ugly.’ Everybody dies.

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Home Page photo:Installation view of Starification Object Series by Hannah Wilke in the exhibition “Artists Make Toys” at the Clocktower Gallery, 1975, © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon, and Andrew Scharlatt, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.