A Trailblazing Lesbian Artist Gets Her Due
Harmony Hammond, “Kong” (1981), cloth, wood, foam rubber, acrylic, gesso, glitter, Dorland’s Wax Medium, charcoal powder, 41 x 74 x 26 inches, Everson Museum of Art, gift of Judith Daner
Made of foam rubber, gesso, glitter, wax and charcoal powder, these wrapped wooden armatures, which have a fantastical quality to them, were conjured up by a line in Monique Wittig’s 1973 novel Le Corps Lesbien (The Lesbian Body), in which she writes, “Cloth covered with latex suggests muscle and tissue.” These “wrapped sculptures” convey a muscular grace, as if Minimalism itself got a camp makeover par elegance.
