15. Hannah Wilke
1940-1993
S.O.S. Starifcation Object Series, 1974 Gelatin silver print. 40 x 27 in. (101.6 x 68.6 cm) Signed, titled, dated and numbered ‘AP 1/2’ in pencil on the reverse of the fush-mount. Estimate $60,000-80,000 Provenance Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York Literature Prestel, Hannah Wilke, p. 48 Despite being numbered ‘AP 1/2’, no formal edition of this print was ever produced, and these works remain incredibly rare to the market.
Hannah Wilke was born Arlene Hannah Butter on March 7, 1940 in New York City to Eastern European immigrant parents; “as an American girl born with the name Butter,” Wilke explained, “I was ofen confused when I heard what it was like to be used, to be spread, to feel sof, to melt in your mouth,” and while the artist abandoned the name Butter, throughout her career a fascination with transmutation, malleability of form, consumption, desire, and the self persisted. In her renowned “performalist self-portraits,” S.O.S. Starifcation Object Series, Wilke applied pieces of chewing gum molded and folded into vaginal-like forms onto her semi-nude body. S.O.S. began in 1974-1975 as an initial group of 28 images, including the present lot, before expanding to approximately 50 images at the series’ conclusion in 1982. Across S.O.S., Wilke poses against a white background in varying states of undress, occasionally taking on accessories like sunglasses, turbans, ties, and hair curlers, all with the playful earnestness of a high-fashion model. In each, her face, torso, and back are marked with small aberrations, either sporadically placed or, as in the present lot, decoratively aligned, simultaneously resembling jewels, blemishes, sores, scars, stigmatic wounds, and vestigial vulvas. The visually disruptive forms have also been regarded as a reference to the numeric tattoos given to Holocaust victims, causing the ‘Star’ in Starifcation to take on weighted signifcance. Wilke began producing these anthropomorphic forms as early as 1959 while studying art at Temple University, and continued to pursue their possibilities throughout her career in varying sizes and mediums such as sculpture, performance, and photography. Wilke initially produced the miniature sculptures that adorn her body in S.O.S.
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from kneaded grey erasers—a ubiquitous material found in artists’ studios—before ultimately choosing chewing gum. The erasers grey anonymity did not correspond with Wilke’s personal, corporal themes in the way sof, colorful (ofen pink) chewing gum could. When translated to the black-and-white photograph, the original color is lost, however the gum maintains a tonality not unlike that of Wilke’s nude fesh, aligning with her body rather than appearing like a foreign addition. Beyond its material qualities, gum also contains a strong political valiance. “I chose gum because it’s the perfect metaphor for the American woman,” Wilke wrote, “chew her up, get what you want out of her, throw her out and pop in a new piece.” Indeed, in S.O.S. Wilke is as much the dejected underside of a school desk, littered with discarded gum, as she is an exemplary beauty. Following her production of the original 28 S.O.S. photographs, Wilke conceived a number of corresponding performances. The Feminist Art Journal chronicled one such performance in February 1975 at an opening at the Gerald Piltzer Gallery, Paris, where Wilke, armed with 3,000 pieces of chewing gum, “amid non-stop television cameras and fashing bulbs, she ofered Super Cherry, Apple Green and Chocolate favored gum to the elegantly attired guests; the chewed pieces were either returned to Wilke who rapidly molded them into 120 ‘sexual sculptures’ push-pinned to the wall or fastened to the artist’s half nude body.” As a performance of orgiastic gum chewing, the collaborative production of Wilke’s sculptures illuminates the sensuality of their dual formation—frst sofened by the mouth and then manipulated with the hands. In our health-conscious time Wilke’s performances now hold an element of danger and disgust, and we are perhaps also reminded of that childhood advice: beware of strangers with candy. In her politics, performative approach to photography, and choice of anthropomorphic forms, Wilke’s S.O.S. resounds within the history of feminist art practice, canonized along with her contemporaries Judy Chicago, Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneemann, Sherin Neshat, and Cindy Sherman. Although her work from the 1970s is undeniably signifcant, Wilke faced criticism in her time from some feminists who criticized the uncompromising pleasure she took in her own beauty and her glamorous self-presentation. “Exhibiting oneself is difcult for other people who don’t feel good about their bodies,” Wilke later remarked. “I could have been more humble—but if I’d been more humble, I wouldn’t have been an artist.” Other images from this series are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
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