Lot Essay
During her lifetime, Eva Hesse's sculpture was celebrated by her contemporaries as a prime exponent of the minimalist aesthetic then dominant; more recently it has been rediscovered by younger critics who emphasize its psycho-sexual content and feminist critique. Ennead is a particularly important example of the obsessive, highly charged work of an artist whose influence is felt more strongly now than ever before.
Ennead consists of a gray papier-mch board, covered with 135 small hemispheres arranged in nine rows, from which hang a multitude of thick, dyed strings; some of the strings dangle straight down from the board and others are attached to the adjacent wall at the left, in accordance with the work's original display in the artist's studio (fig. 1). In this sculpture, Hesse takes up many of the ideas which she first used in December 1965 in Ishtar (fig. 2). But Ennead is still a more personal and powerful work that transcends the self-imposed limits of minimalism. In Ennead, Hesse plays with the contrasts of order and chaos, reason and irrationality. Concerning the piece, she said:
It started out perfectly symmetrical at the top and everything was perfectly planned. The strings were graded in color as well as the board from which they came. Yet it ended up in a jungle of strings... The strings are very soft. I dyed them. Even though they were in perfect order, even though I wove the strings equally in the back, they were so soft they went different ways. The further it went toward the ground, the more chaotic it got; the further you got from the structure, the more it varied. I've always opposed content to form or just form to form. There is always divergency... It could be arranged to be perfect. (Quoted in L. R. Lippard, op. cit., p. 62)
As Lucy Lippard has noted, "Ennead concretizes a concept mentioned earlier in Hesse's notebooks: 'rope irregular (like snake hung) while working on Laocon hang from ceiling to floor ad infinitum; cord room--like new piece going and coming every which way' (ibid., p. 62).
At about the same time as the present work, Hesse also made Laocon (fig. 3) and Metronomic Irregularity I (Estate of Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, New York). On April 30, while at work on Laocon, she wrote in her notebook, "Cords everywhere. Will do one that does not come from a form, that is endless, totally encroaching and irrational. With its own rationale even if it looks chaotic" (quoted in H. Cooper, op. cit., p. 37).
Hesse thought of her work as autobiographical. Among her journal entries in 1966, she wrote:
I go in circles. maybe therefore my drawings... The work is there, the love, the pain, the concrete manifestations... It [my work] does parallel my life for certain. (Quoted in ibid., pp. 38-39)
A contemporary photograph shows Hesse literally buried in string (fig. 4).
Hesse herself likened her approach to Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot who "go on waiting and pushing. And they keep saying it and doing nothing... It is really a key to understanding me... And only a few understand and could see that my humanism comes from there. My whole approach to living and sad things comes from there (quoted in an unedited transcript of C. Nemser, "An Interview with Eva Hesse," parts of which were included in Artforum, May 1970, p. 62). And Naomi Spector has written:
Ennead is a paradigm of how important the rational structure was to Hesse as a route to her deepest, most absurd sources. There is a kind of excessiveness verging on the irrational in the very number of tiny hemispheres. So there is more than one conflict between the rational and the irrational here. The mind veers back and forth repeatedly between the two. And then there is that down-to-earth gesture of the hand spontaneously getting the most unruly strings out of the way without any more fuss. It feels like abstract humor... Her unique contribution to the art of our times has to do with the invention of forms of potent visual presence. They bring us to a place within ourselves where we confront and are moved by that most startling fact, being itself. Its meanings for us are all difficult, real, ironic, and unique. (N. Spector, "Eva Hesse: The Early Years, 1960-1965," exh. cat. Eva Hesse: Drawing in Space, Ulm Museum, Ulm and Mnster, 1994 p. 51)
Philip Leider, too, has written an insightful comment on the work:
It is Abstract Expressionist sculpture of a higher order than I would have thought possible, an inspiration that I would not have thought available to a younger artist. Her work struck me as being as stumbling and as deeply felt, as expressive and inchoate as, say, a work like Pollock's She-Wolf. (P. Leider, Artforum, Feb. 1970, p. 70)
Ennead literally means a group of nine. It is likely that Hesse got the word out of a dictionary, or possibly from the thesaurus that Mel Bochner gave her in the spring of 1966. A list she made in her notebook at that time included the titles of many of her contemporary works: "Vertiginous Detour/box the compass/baldric/labyrinth/Ennead Several/ingeminate/biaxial/diaticdyadic/dithyletic/bigeminate ingemination-repetition/ennead--a group or set of nine" (L. R. Lippard, op. cit., p. 65). Barrette notes that it "also refers to a grouping of nine gods associated with the mythology of Ancient Egypt and is reminiscent of mythic titles Laocoon and Ishtar." (B. Barrette, op. cit., p. 88). Ennead is also the title of the most famous text of Neo-Platonism; the platonic investigation of the relation of appearance and reality, the ideal and the mutable, parallels some of the questions raised by minimalism.
(fig. 1) Eva Hesse's Bowery studio, 1966
Lots 5 and 21 are included in the installation
Photograph by Gretchen Lambert
(fig. 2) Eva Hesse, Ishtar, 1965
J. J. N. Collection
(fig. 3) Eva Hesse, Laocon, 1966
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Fund for Contemporary Art and gift of the artist and Fischbach Gallery
(fig. 4) Eva Hesse buried in string, New York, ca. 1968
Courtesy H. Landshoff
Ennead consists of a gray papier-mch board, covered with 135 small hemispheres arranged in nine rows, from which hang a multitude of thick, dyed strings; some of the strings dangle straight down from the board and others are attached to the adjacent wall at the left, in accordance with the work's original display in the artist's studio (fig. 1). In this sculpture, Hesse takes up many of the ideas which she first used in December 1965 in Ishtar (fig. 2). But Ennead is still a more personal and powerful work that transcends the self-imposed limits of minimalism. In Ennead, Hesse plays with the contrasts of order and chaos, reason and irrationality. Concerning the piece, she said:
It started out perfectly symmetrical at the top and everything was perfectly planned. The strings were graded in color as well as the board from which they came. Yet it ended up in a jungle of strings... The strings are very soft. I dyed them. Even though they were in perfect order, even though I wove the strings equally in the back, they were so soft they went different ways. The further it went toward the ground, the more chaotic it got; the further you got from the structure, the more it varied. I've always opposed content to form or just form to form. There is always divergency... It could be arranged to be perfect. (Quoted in L. R. Lippard, op. cit., p. 62)
As Lucy Lippard has noted, "Ennead concretizes a concept mentioned earlier in Hesse's notebooks: 'rope irregular (like snake hung) while working on Laocon hang from ceiling to floor ad infinitum; cord room--like new piece going and coming every which way' (ibid., p. 62).
At about the same time as the present work, Hesse also made Laocon (fig. 3) and Metronomic Irregularity I (Estate of Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, New York). On April 30, while at work on Laocon, she wrote in her notebook, "Cords everywhere. Will do one that does not come from a form, that is endless, totally encroaching and irrational. With its own rationale even if it looks chaotic" (quoted in H. Cooper, op. cit., p. 37).
Hesse thought of her work as autobiographical. Among her journal entries in 1966, she wrote:
I go in circles. maybe therefore my drawings... The work is there, the love, the pain, the concrete manifestations... It [my work] does parallel my life for certain. (Quoted in ibid., pp. 38-39)
A contemporary photograph shows Hesse literally buried in string (fig. 4).
Hesse herself likened her approach to Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot who "go on waiting and pushing. And they keep saying it and doing nothing... It is really a key to understanding me... And only a few understand and could see that my humanism comes from there. My whole approach to living and sad things comes from there (quoted in an unedited transcript of C. Nemser, "An Interview with Eva Hesse," parts of which were included in Artforum, May 1970, p. 62). And Naomi Spector has written:
Ennead is a paradigm of how important the rational structure was to Hesse as a route to her deepest, most absurd sources. There is a kind of excessiveness verging on the irrational in the very number of tiny hemispheres. So there is more than one conflict between the rational and the irrational here. The mind veers back and forth repeatedly between the two. And then there is that down-to-earth gesture of the hand spontaneously getting the most unruly strings out of the way without any more fuss. It feels like abstract humor... Her unique contribution to the art of our times has to do with the invention of forms of potent visual presence. They bring us to a place within ourselves where we confront and are moved by that most startling fact, being itself. Its meanings for us are all difficult, real, ironic, and unique. (N. Spector, "Eva Hesse: The Early Years, 1960-1965," exh. cat. Eva Hesse: Drawing in Space, Ulm Museum, Ulm and Mnster, 1994 p. 51)
Philip Leider, too, has written an insightful comment on the work:
It is Abstract Expressionist sculpture of a higher order than I would have thought possible, an inspiration that I would not have thought available to a younger artist. Her work struck me as being as stumbling and as deeply felt, as expressive and inchoate as, say, a work like Pollock's She-Wolf. (P. Leider, Artforum, Feb. 1970, p. 70)
Ennead literally means a group of nine. It is likely that Hesse got the word out of a dictionary, or possibly from the thesaurus that Mel Bochner gave her in the spring of 1966. A list she made in her notebook at that time included the titles of many of her contemporary works: "Vertiginous Detour/box the compass/baldric/labyrinth/Ennead Several/ingeminate/biaxial/diaticdyadic/dithyletic/bigeminate ingemination-repetition/ennead--a group or set of nine" (L. R. Lippard, op. cit., p. 65). Barrette notes that it "also refers to a grouping of nine gods associated with the mythology of Ancient Egypt and is reminiscent of mythic titles Laocoon and Ishtar." (B. Barrette, op. cit., p. 88). Ennead is also the title of the most famous text of Neo-Platonism; the platonic investigation of the relation of appearance and reality, the ideal and the mutable, parallels some of the questions raised by minimalism.
(fig. 1) Eva Hesse's Bowery studio, 1966
Lots 5 and 21 are included in the installation
Photograph by Gretchen Lambert
(fig. 2) Eva Hesse, Ishtar, 1965
J. J. N. Collection
(fig. 3) Eva Hesse, Laocon, 1966
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
Fund for Contemporary Art and gift of the artist and Fischbach Gallery
(fig. 4) Eva Hesse buried in string, New York, ca. 1968
Courtesy H. Landshoff