ounsnts Reading Passage 3 21... rg IELTS Reading Passage 3 nS LISTERINE aaa ee EVA HESSE Three Pieces Plus.. The Guggenheim Art Gallery, New York. {none comer ofthe room is a mass of tangled rope suspended trom 18 caling wih some sections dangling tothe floor the frstof tree encountered pieces of work that have a resounding impacton the viewing public. "stops one in one's tracks: how dare itbe there - this mess of ‘nothing! is ike arranged chaos: thats, te confused mixture of varying sizes ofrope, dipped in latex, looks as though itmight collapse in a heap on the floor at any moment. Atthe same time, it is hela up and in place by a series affine wires and hooks, giving it a strange sense of . order. ‘A deliberate challenge to the forces of gravity. Ris @ shambles. ‘makes one laugh. tis play. is drawing inthe air! Maybe itcan ‘move ordance about Yet itis hardly tere, ike something imagined, ‘The materials are cheap and disposable. Impermanent, tke. the people looking atit.Butitis very defilely present thas a presence. You can see that people want o walk into itand become ‘8 partof it butalas! The galery guard is hovering nearby. nage courlesy of The Estate of Eva Hesse ‘Galore Hauser & Wirth, Zureh, To the le ofthis piece, cunning along the wal, in wo rows on top of| ‘each other ea long sores ofid-less boxes. They are mounted at average nase height and are made of fbregiass which gives them @ shiny, almost mast, appearance. They are the colour of murky water, absorbing he gallery light with an opacily similar to thal of ‘mucus or tree gum. They look as though they might be soft and malleable to touch, with their irregular edges and non-conforming sides. This gives the ‘overall impression that they could fallin on themselves or slide ‘down the wall. The stuctur is puzzlingly familiar, similar to things inthe world, and yet tis not ike anything in particular, Tage ourlosy of The Esate of Eva Hosso ‘Galore Housar & Wirth, 2urch Inthe adjacent comer isthe third piece, consisting of collecton of rine cylindrical open-ended objects, sit partway rom end to end, ‘They give tho appearance of being randomly placed - some lying, some leaning on the wall of on each ather-all seeming somehow to be related. Like the boxes, they are a multiple of each other. Made fibreglass witha shiny surface they look almost ike abandoned pods that had ance been alive. The associations seem to jumo around in one's head, running betwean sensations of delight and pleasure, violence and discomfort (One has to bend downto be with them more, Driven by the desire ‘o physically interact, one is almost forced fo stoop further so that lone ean touch, or indeed taste, his intriguing surface; butno, the guard is here. “The visual language apparent in these artworks is unfamiliar, 3818 the artst, Eva Hesse, Her work's as excitng as its disturbing. For many, Hesse's sculpture rofors essentially to the body. Ths, perhaps, does not seem surprising when itis in relation to the body thatwomen are generally assessed. Hesse died ofa brain tumour In 1970 atthe age of 34, kmustb0 an inescapable Inevitably, therefore, that her work was readin the context ofits time wh has, untl recently, Boon largely abandoned. Given the influence of feminism on our cultural consciousness since that period, it seems paramount hat we avoid, or atthe very least atlemptto avoid, those dramatic facts abouther ife and family history. We may tien be freed from a limited and narrow translation other art Hesse's work is much more ambiguous and funny than some rather Iteral readings would have us believe. Perhaps itis precisely because her use of metaphorin her works so subtie that it ‘escapes the one-line defnitons we so love to employ. We are now, more than ever, hungry forthe cult of personally. While Hesse and otners before and since can more than fll that demand, we seam in danger af fcusing onthe fe ofthe artist and hoton the life af tre art When looking at Hesse’ sculpture, drawings and paintings, the ‘mastinteresting and challenging aspects is just tere - within the work. And this must be the staring point for any interpretation, not her complex ife or untimely death htptwwiviss-exam,netdocsMReadinglELTS, Reading 8 Passage dtm 1ounsnts IELTS Reading Passage 3 Tid eco Se : Copyright © 2007 IELTS-Examsbr /> Design by Rad Danesh Valid KHTML" Valid C88 Google+ hepwwiviss-exam,netdocsmReadinglELTS Reading 8 Passage Stn