Hannah Wilke
Born 1940, New York
Died 1993, Houston
1962 BFA Temple University, Philadelphia
Selected museum exhibitions: Temple University (2019); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York (2008); Atrium-Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Vitoria, Spain (2006); Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen (1998); University of Missouri, Saint Louis (1989); University of California, Irvine (1976); The Kitchen, New York (1974)
Selected honors: Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants (1987, 1992); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1982); Alaska Council for the Arts grant (1980); National Endowment for the Arts grant (1976)
Selected public collections: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; British Museum, London; Carnegie Museum, Philadelphia; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Jewish Museum, New York; Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sophia, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate, London; Wadsworth Atheneum, Connecticut; Whitney Museum of American Art
Among the first artists to explicitly use imagery of female reproductive organs in her art, Hannah Wilke was an essential figure in the development of feminist art. Her S.O.S. Starification Object Series, which she made from 1974 through 1979, are among her most renowned works. Wilke used the unconventional medium of chewing gum to create shapes that suggest the vulva, then placed them on paper and on her face and body like growths or scars. In this work, the chewing-gum sculptures are arranged in a gridded array, as if a hieroglyphic display or a group of scientific specimens.