The Female Closet

Barbara Hammer explores the lives of three female artists, each from a different period of the 20th century: documentary photographer Alice Austen, Dada collage artist Hannah Höch, and provocative painter Nicole Eisenman. Beyond their artistic practices and their gender, what they have in common is that their non-heterosexual orientation remained hidden or unspoken for a long time, in some cases until after their deaths.

The filmmaker draws on remarkable archival photographs and film footage to create three portraits in a visual style that is distinctly her own, while at times also referencing the artists’ own methods. Through interviews with curators, activists and art historians (and, in the case of Nicole Eisenman, the artist herself), Hammer sheds light on the role gender and sexual orientation played—and continues to play—in the women’s artistic and personal lives. They reflect on the degree of visibility the women were afforded and how the art world and the wider world treated them. The Female Closet thus portrays not only the three artists, but also the taboo that shaped the way their work was represented.

This screening is part of Focus: Barbara Hammer, a program presenting films by American filmmaker and visual artist Barbara Hammer. See the full program here.