MARXISM & ART
1977
off-set poster on heavy stock paper
10 x 8 inches
edition 16 of 25

Hannah Wilke stands among 1960s artists who defied the rules with their far-reaching and prescient art focused on identity, gender, sexuality and subjectivity in the wider political and social realms. Though involved with the potent matrix of feminism, the body and the self, Wilke did not create simplistic agitprop in support of causes, but questioned orthodoxies of all sorts, as this provocative work demonstrates. The image in the center of this work shows the artist’s assertive gaze, ironically cocked hips and gender-defying necktie with her signature bubble gum female anatomies attached to her body. Minus the text, the image itself was originally produced for an exhibition on feminism and art at the Women's Building in LA in 1977. Wilke added the text to the image to create the work we see here as a way to address a critic’s reaction that Wilke felt was overly determined by narrow ideology. The artist explained: “I made ’Marxism and Art: Beware of Fascist Feminism’, because I felt feminism could easily become fascistic if people believe that feminism is only their kind of feminism, and, not my kind of feminism, or, her kind of feminism, or his kind of feminism.” This rare poster is number 16 of a series of only 25 that she produced in addition to a larger edition, an example of which is the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Hannah Wilke’s brave and singular explorations of the self and human experience lasted until her untimely death; the battle of her final years became the last subject of her fearless investigation into the intersections of the personal and the political via the female body and its contested roles in contemporary culture. Hannah Wilke was born in New York in 1940, and died in Houston in 1993. Wilke attended Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, and since the early 1960s she exhibited her work in countless important solo and group exhibitions in this country and abroad. Reflecting the importance of her work, it can be found in major collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York; Tate, London; The Centre Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art: and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

estimated retail value:  $25,000

opening bid:  $17,500

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