An analysis of the critical discourse on the work of Eva Hesse /

This thesis is an analytical study of the various critical approaches taken to the work of Eva Hesse and their underlying methodologies and theoretical assumptions. Its purpose is to determine in a general way how and why the nature of criticism has changed from positions strongly influenced by Modernism as defined by Clement Greenberg to those that involved a separation of criticism from consideration of artworks as individual phenomena.For the most part, Chapter One concerns critics' Modernist analyses of Hesse's relationship to Minimalism and their progression towards a criticism based on non-formalist, non-hierarchical theories of style. There is also a short discussion on the linkage created between Hesse's art and specific psychological traumas in her life. Included as well is an explanation of the changing conception of originality and the critic's dilemma in confronting private content through the strictures of public dialogue.Chapter Two investigates critical discussions of experience, how art was apprehended and how meaning was transmitted.Chapter III involves a feminist debate on the issues of gender. The content of Hesse's work was analyzed in psycho-biographical terms and within the framework of her identity as a female artist in western culture.And finally, the thesis concludes by pointing out the evolution of criticism into a distinct, independent discipline whereby the critic articulates the theoretical contexts in which the artwork exists, but then extends in into a broader cultural setting where the critic analyzes the significance of such positions taken, its relationship to the past and future implications