Born in 1936, Eva Hesse escaped Nazi Germany and fled to the US two years later. At age 10, Eva Hesse's mother committed suicide. Her father remarried a woman named Eva, who became Eva Hesse. Her stepmother (the other Eva Hesse) was diagnosed with a brain tumor exactly two years to the day before our Eva was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 33. Eva Hesse (the stepmother) got out of the same hospital (they had the same doctor) two years to the day that our Eva was admitted. She died at age 34, a year after being diagnosed. It sounds incredible, unbelievable even. But her struggles through life are key to understanding her work. She explains this in her own words:
“There's not been one normal thing in my life- not one- not even my art... That's why I think I might be so good. I have no fear. I could take risks. I have the most openness about my art... I'm willing really to walk on the edge, and if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go. But in my life- maybe because my life has been so traumatic, so absurd- there hasn't been one normal, happy thing. I'm the easiest person to make happy and the easiest person to make sad because I've gone through so much. And it's never stopped.”
All quotes are from A Conversation with Cindy Nemser,
http://books.google.com/books?id=_8wK9C5g-2gC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=A+Conversation+with+Cindy+Nemser&source=bl&ots=3oXgeJpSlc&sig=sfpnVAfgyrEZ8RjTXttvqZU12FI&hl=en&ei=zqPXS97DE8OAlAeWydD7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=A%20Conversation%20with%20Cindy%20Nemser&f=false
More information about Eva Hesse can be found at http://www.evahesse.com/
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