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Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

Barbara Hammer

Evidentiary Bodies

Barbara Hammer is an American feminist artist known as a pioneer of queer experimental and documentary film. In concert with an exhibition of her work at the Leslie Homan Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art, this volume seeks to celebrate the depth and expanse of Hammer’s five decades of art making.

Bringing together both known and previously unseen works of film and video, installations, works on paper, and material from her archive, this volume addresses critical themes that appear throughout Hammer’s work, including sensation and intimacy, lesbian representation, and the maintenance of illness, in addition to exploring the artist’s relationship to experimental queer cinema, feminist history, and environmental activism. Featuring a wide range of responses, from personal anecdotes to academic analysis and poetic interpretation, this volume highlights the resonating impact of Hammer’s artistic narrative across cinema studies, art history, queer theory, and feminist thought.

104 pages | 75 color plates | 8 x 10 | © 2018

Art: American Art

Film Studies


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Reviews

“Hammer prefers the term ‘actionary’ to ‘visionary’ in describing the work of other queer artists she has documented and promoted over the decades. On the basis of this show, I’d say both terms apply to her.”

Holland Cotter | New York Times

“A testament to the singular combination of sincerity and irreverent humor that characterizes [Hammer's] sex-positive feminism. . . . Hammer’s work reminds us that visibility is a political act.” 

Artforum

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Screaming for Lesbian Visibility
Gonzalo Casals
Introduction
Staci Bu Shea and Carmel Curtis
Barbara Hammer: The Poetry of her Films
Janlori Goldman
Making Lesbians Visible: The Experimental Documentaries of Barbara Hammer as Queer Archive
Ron Gregg
Barbara Hammer and the Mutability of Film (Observations from an Archivist)
Mark Toscano
A Video Letter to Barbara Hammer
Joey Carducci
The Artist as Archivist, the Archive as Art
Ann Cvetkovich
Choreographing the Lesbian Possibility: Barbara Hammer’s Double Strength
Krystyna Mazur
Ways of the Flesh: Barbara Hammer’s Vertical Worlds
Rizvana Bradley
A Conversation with Barbara Hammer
Jamillah James
On Resisting Paradise
Domitilla Olivieri
Beyond Cultural Feminism: New Approaches to Barbara’s Hammer’s Early Films
Greg Youmans
Systems Breakdown: Medical Approaches
David Napier in Conversation with Barbara Hammer
Dearest Barbara
Florrie Burke
Author Biographies
Checklist
Credits / Colophon
 

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