Hannah Wilke

“Hannah used to talk about being spontaneous and I think this is mainly what it is all about, being spontaneous and not planning too much when working. Like grooving with the energies of the universe will provide ultimate meaning.” – SMW.

“‘Morning, fuck me up my ass’. Wilke and bubblegums. As far as genius goes, she is whatever that means. I was drawing teeth all the time. I heard that if a man has a dream about their teeth fall out, it’s got to do with impotence. Men dream a lot of things that have to do with impotence. I am not looking forward to being impotent, cause I like to come. But sex is not penetrative to me. Andrea Dworkin. Paul Preciado.” – SMW. “Tricky when you get Butler or US references. I am happy when people do the same thing out of the (colonial) bubble. Imperial knowledge. Dali, Lorca and Bunuel in love in the Spanish almost-Renaissance.” – AC and SMW.

“Performalist. It’s funny when your image becomes part of your work. Hannah did it because she was beautiful and that was troublesome for feminists, they thought it was easy, but it wasn’t. I’ve been objectified in different ways – my face not being good enough, always commenting on my weight (I think the unusual bits of me are part of what make me queer). Who makes them entitled to someone else’s physicality? Carolee always told me to go where the difficulty is, and that is (my) physicality. So, I made it central because people thought it was important somehow to draw my attention to. Sometimes I wish I could have been more handsome but then that was all I would’ve been known as. I can bridge the more and less beautiful.” – SMW.

“As a young gay man, I had to like Madonna *sighs*.” – SMW.

“Hannah on the phone. I've always been into people who take control of their own image. I can't see through your eyes. Art and your body – you can't. The total package. The interior, the exterior, the brain, the body. You're very greedy you want everything and I do.” – SMW and AC. “Flirting with the idea of being a pop star. Patti Smith I can do this.” – SMW and AC.

Rijksakademie Internal Open Studios – 07.09.20. “Hannah, Adrian and Carolee are the ones watching us as we speak. Courage from Carolee, spontaneity from Hannah, and rigorousness from Adrian.” – SMW.

“They are probably nice guys but it's kind of intense.” – SMW.

“These people drinking champagne with the pictures of Hannah (Wilke) dying behind them. But it's not like they didn't care, they we also mourning. This has happened with other artists/authors, they died just before you found them, it feels like you missed them by a second.” – SMW.

“Wilke SOS series. I tried to emulate this with ‘Before Robin, After Hannah Wilke’. Robotic presence in this system (of archiving).” – SMW.

“Wilke’s vaginal gum sculptures. You die, the value goes sky high. Assertion of myself over a painful past, Wilke to melt with her. Can I see myself in relation to her and what she does?” – SMW.

SMW & AC inventorying session – 08.10.20. “Maybe it doesn’t take 20 years to understand the work, as Pina Montano says, but even to face the work.” – SMW. “I’m making an executive decision that the archive will have inconsistencies.” – SMW. “How do you look at work that you made 20 years ago and don’t like or feel comfortable with? – AC. “Or relate to […] I don’t see the point in destroying things. They had a function.” – SMW. “It took me 10 years to make, my whole teenage years (‘I’m Proud of Myself’ sculpture), and I didn’t know I was making it. I was living. The accumulation is something I appreciate.” – SMW.