Hannah Wilke

(American, 1940–1993)

Hannah Wilke was an American artist known for her confrontational work which addressed issues relating to sexuality and femininity. Her groundbreaking performance and photographic pieces critiicized the history of art for glorifying the male gaze and sought to reclaim the image of the female body. “To diffuse self-prejudice women must take control of and have pride in the sensuality of their own bodies and create a sensuality in their own terms, without referring to the concepts degenerated by culture,” the artist said. In one of her most important works, S.O.S. Starification Object Series (1974–75), the artist takes nude self-portraits of herself covered in small vagina-shaped pieces of chewing gum, as a means of parodying media representations of female sexuality. Born Arlene Hannah Butter on March 7, 1940 in New York, NY, Wilke developed an interest in photographic self-portraiture in high school and studied fine art at Temple University in Philadelphia. After completing her education, she exhibited her work internationally and became associated with second-wave feminism. In 1974, she gained public attention for her video work Gestures, in which she pulled at her skin for 30 minutes, as if she was creating a sculpture. Near the end of her career, she was diagnosed with lymphoma and documented her battle with cancer through her Intra-Venus series. Shortly after, she was the subject the retrospective “Hannah Wilke” at Gallery 210 in St. Louis. Wilke died January 28, 1993 in New York, NY. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, The Modern Museum of Art in New York, and the Princeton University Art Museum, among others.