
Author
Staci Bu Shea and Carmel CurtisImage
Barbara Hammer, Double Strength (still), 1978, 16mm film transferred to digital video. Courtesy of the artist and KOW, Berlin.
PAST
BARBARA HAMMER: Evidentiary Bodies
Oct 07 - Jan 28, 2018
Barbara Hammer: Evidentiary Bodies is a multifaceted exhibition-project that delves into the life’s work and resonating impact of lesbian feminist artist and filmmaker Barbara Hammer. Revolving around a retrospective at Leslie Lohman Museum for Gay & Lesbian Art, Evidentiary Bodies as a project encompasses exhibitions, a publication, performances, readings, and an extensive film program at various locations across New York City.
Known to most as a pioneer in queer cinema, this occasion marks the first where a large breadth of Hammer’s work can be witnessed and studied side-by-side. The exhibition at Leslie Lohman brings together both known and previously unseen films, videos, paintings, drawings, collages, installations, and archival presentations to foreground resonating themes and qualities within Hammer’s ongoing practice. Encompassing matters of lesbian subjectivity and sexuality, politics and representation, and visceral manifestations of pleasure and discomfort, Evidentiary Bodies tells a story of the relations, imprints, and textures that continue to shape Hammer’s oeuvre since the 1960s.
The exhibition-project is titled after Hammer’s most recent performance in New York City that calls attention to our interdependency with material and immaterial surroundings—including the influence of other bodies—that inform states of being and a sense of self. Pointing to this latest performance while engaging her earlier works is a way to examine Hammer’s thematic lineage and material experimentation over the course of five decades. Collapsing the past and present, activism and intimacy can be read as passionate, steadfast, and intergenerational forces within Hammer’s generative process.
Related

PAST
SELDOM SEEN: Never or rarely seen works from the permanent collection
Nov 17 - Jan 23, 2010
more
PAST
LESBIANS SEEING LESBIANS: Building Community in Early Feminist Photography
Sep 14 - Dec 22, 2011
more
PAST
Nude In Public: Sascha Schneider: Homoeroticism and the Male Form circa 1900
Sep 20 - Dec 08, 2013
more
PAST
MEDIUM OF DESIRE: An International Anthology of Photography and Video
Dec 18 - Mar 27, 2016
more
PAST
RUBBISH AND DREAMS: The Genderqueer Performance Art of Stephen Varble
Sep 29 - Jan 27, 2019
more
PAST
ROBERT GIARD (1939-2002) Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay & Lesbian Writers
Apr 25 - May 20, 2020
more