To create art on the verge of the uncontrollable, that was Eva Hesse’s passion. For 1970, for example, she had more than twenty group exhibitions scheduled while Artforum Magazine was to feature her as a cover story. Born 1936 in Germany, she was one of the few key female figures on the 1960s New York art scene to arouse the attention of critics and buyers alike. She died of a brain tumour in May 1970. Hesse had moved to New York at the age of sixteen and started to work at Seventeen Magazine. She loved art, was inspired, was full of vitality. She attended the prestigious Pratt Institute of Design and began to paint. Rejecting any restriction or limitation, she painted against all the rules. Today, a picture of hers can cost US$ ten million and other works are on show at major art museums throughout the world.

Marcie Begleiter’s documentary debut deepens our understanding of Hesse the artist as a young woman, an artist whose life and work were so closely knit. Begleiter interweaves Hesse’s intimate diary entries, which lend the narrative its spirit, with an impressive abundance of diverse material: a detailed documentation of Hesse’s last exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin; raw archival material from the 1940s, 50s and 60s; and interviews with partners, close friends, celebrated gallery owners and curators. Self-deprecating, smart and with touching honesty, Hesse speaks of her otherness and solitude, explores her artistic drive and describes her search for forms of expression. She also tells of her doubts and fears – and, above all, of her faith in art.

In cooperation with: Filmfiction