Hannah Wilke

Hannah Wilke is recognised as a pioneer of feminist art who, with confrontational use of her own body, addressed issues relating to sexuality and femininity. Her groundbreaking performance and photographic pieces criticised the history of art for glorifying the male gaze and sought to reclaim the image of the female body.

She was among the first to explore ‘essentialist art’, tying the female experience to the image of the vagina, which she rendered variously and stuck to photographs, postcards, and her body.

In 1974, Wilke began work on her seminal series S.O.S. Starification Object Series, in which she merged her minimalist sculpture and her own body by creating tiny vulval sculptures out of chewing gum and sticking them to herself. She then had herself photographed in pin-up poses to exaggerate and satirise cultural values of feminine beauty.

Her 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 many others.