Eva Hesse Page #9

"Oh, what are you gonna do?"

She said, "I don't know, yet."

She said, "I'll play

with them for a while."

And she'd look, and she would decide

what to do with something.

SUSSMAN:
One of the great

things she teaches us,

I think, is play.

That really the best thing

any of us can do,

with materials, is play with them.

Play with them until the form

begins to have an impact.

And she absolutely

couldn't stop playing.

And I think it saved her life.

HESSE". The lack of energy

I have, is contrasted

by a psychic energy, of rebirth,

a will lo start lo live again,

work again, be seen, love.

I fight sleep to respond

to this real excitement

that is frustrated because

there is little I can do.

ROBERT". Oh, H would be

so easy to give up and say,

"I can't deal with all

of these negative things,

"I can't think about my work,

"so I'm just going to concentrate

on my medical problems."

But Eva insisted on having H all.

SYLVIA:
I think she did it because

she didn't know What else to do.

Made her feel alive.

It made her feel alive, right.

Her chance to be a great artist

was on her, and she knew it.

She knew she was doing

really good work.

And of course, everybody was

being very supportive, too.

You know, a lot of very well

known artists, you know,

were very fond of her

and really told her

this is great, keep going,

this is wonderful.

So it was, in a funny way,

it was the great time

of her life, I think.

JOHNS". She came back to the Bowery,

and she called me,

and it was just, "Let's go,

let's get to work."

Then we started to do

that sculpture right after.

There was so much energy.

We were giggling and having

this wonderful time.

The stuff was dripping, all over the place.

And this just, this wonderful

cobwebby kind of thing

all across the room.

We had a rough time, getting around H.

HESSE". Climbing around,

getting things up,

moved about, around and hung.

Four hands changing,

manipulating changes.

Things to allow, things to happen.

Suspended hangings enabling

themselves to continue,

connect and multiply.

GOLDMAN". She took that feeling,

right after her cancer operation.

The scars and the wearing of the wigs

and all that it meant,

now she had vanity.

Eva had vanity.

So she took H all

and put H into that piece.

She had this horrible wig from Sassoon.

But she would laugh about H.

I do remember visiting

her in the hospital

and having her whip off her wig

with great pride and say,

"Look what I look like bald."

(LAUGHING)

She thought it was quite funny.

In such a hard year,

with so many operations

and so many things going wrong,

um, we had a lot of

good times. Amazing!

And I really credit that to something,

that I was just doing

and she did naturally,

was to live in the moment.

HESSE". There certainly is

the desire to write and work.

I can't get started.

Days pass. I do so very little.

I did have a tape interview

with Cindy Nemser.

Three different days.

(NEMSER ON TAPE) Oh, /had

a good question for you.

(SPEAKING)

(HESSE SPEAKING)

SUSSMAN:
Untitled Rope

Piece is the next to last

major piece of sculpture

that Eva Hesse, made in her life.

And H's quite possibly, her masterpiece.

She describes making this piece

as being a kind of choreography.

She was dipping the rope,

into buckets of latex,

and then working with an assistant

and hanging H from

the rafters of her studio.

So it's serendipity

of taking a found material,

processing that, and letting

gravity do its thing.

HESSE". Hung irregularly,

tying knots as connections,

really letting ll go, as ll will,

allowing H to determine more

of the way H completes itself.

Non forms, non planned,

non art, non nothing.

SEROTA". She was using her

own body, her own experience,

dealing with the issues

of her own mortality.

Coming to terms with that.

CHARASH:
It was not much

longer after that,

that she was rushed

to New York Hospital,

because she was in excruciating pain.

HESSE". H is time again.

I have another brain tumor.

OHARASH:
She was operated,

on March 29th.

It was that surgery, did have an effect.

She did lose it after that surgery.

The decision was made by Helen

not to tell Eva that she was

sick and going to die.

TIMPANELLI:
I was there when

she asked the doctor,

was this going to come back again?

We were holding hands.

And he said, "Yes,

this is the kind of tumor

"that might come back again."

(MUTTERS INDISTINCTLY)

That was it. She knew.

People said, "Oh, she didn't know."

Of course she knew.

HESSE". I knew. No fear.

I did not fear death.

I knew it was there, could be.

But I did not fear.

TIMPANELLI:
When she was in

the hospital the third time,

I went to visit.

She was feeling better.

She was sitting up.

She had a newsprint pad

and she was making something.

And she said, Look, what do you think?

I said, They look like a bunch of feet.

What is that?

And she laughed. She says,

"Oh, I didn't think of...

Oh, they're feet. Isn't that wonder..."

And we laughed and she

made a little model.

And then, of course, she made

that great sculpture.

JOHNS". She was very sick at that point

and she couldn't Work.

But she had a couple of students

that were star pupils,

and they made the piece.

TIMPANELLI:
They put them

in too much of an order.

She said, Oh, I don't want

them in that order.

She wanted more absurd.

She had a show at the Steuben Glass,

on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.

The Seven Poles were in that

show, and at the same time,

she was the cover of Artforum.

Contingent was on

the cover of Artforum.

And that was at the time when

she was really not copasetic.

We out H out.

We scotch taped it across from her bed.

And at one point, she says,

"That. That's me."

HESSE". lam not unhappy, not at all.

I look at the past

three-and-a-half years

with a kind of amazement.

AH that has come to pass.

My changes outside and inside.

Loan be proud.

OHARASH:
Eva died on May 29th,

1970, a Friday.

She was 34 years old.

LEWITT:
Dear Grace, {received a telegram

from Helen about Eva's death

when I arrived here Saturday.

I am so sad.

You must be, too.

She was a good friend,

a best friend for both of us.

It still hasn't hit home, because

I'm not there to see and talk to her.

When I realize that H could

never happen again,

I'll be heartbroken.

Love, Sol.

OHARASH:
Despite the fact that

Eva Hesse has had exhibitions

throughout the world, this is more special,

perhaps more emotional,

because this is the city

where Eva and I were born.

PHYLLIDA HARLOW". I first encountered

Eva Hesse's work,

and it was like feeding a starving person.

It was exactly what I had been waiting for.

She's telling me yet again,

the work can come from you.

And it has this deep sense of

intimacy and this closeness.

You can still feel the presence

of the act of making.

The artist is there, embedded

in what is, what you're looking at.

It's one of the most exciting

takes on painting,

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