So Help Me Hannah: Snatch-shots with Ray Guns
Hannah Wilke was one of a number of artists in the 1960s and 1970s who began manipulating their own bodies in photographs and performances to call attention to rituals of self-presentation. Invited to exhibit in an abandoned school in Long Island City recently reopened as an art venue, Wilke posed for several hundred photographs that became backdrops for subsequent performances in the space. She referred to the series as a "performalist self-portrait with Donald Goddard," crediting the involvement of her partner, who photographed the sequence. Alternately predator and prey, Wilke took up a range of roles women are often thought to play in society.
Artwork Details
- Title: So Help Me Hannah: Snatch-shots with Ray Guns
- Artist: Hannah Wilke (American, New York 1940–1993 Houston, Texas)
- Artist: Performalist Self-Portrait with Donald Goddard
- Date: 1978
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 33.1 x 21.9 cm (13 1/16 x 8 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 35.4 x 28 cm (13 15/16 x 11 in.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation Gift, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors, 2010
- Object Number: 2010.352
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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Hannah Wilke
1977
Hannah Wilke
Donald Goddard
1978
Hannah Wilke
Donald Goddard
1978
Hannah Wilke
Donald Goddard
1978
Hannah Wilke
1975–78
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