Brydie O'connor's Barbara Forever Explores Artist Barbara Hammer's Legacy

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A new documentary by director Brydie O'Connor,“Barbara Forever,” is set to begin its theatrical run this Friday, offering a tactile exploration of experimental queer filmmaker Barbara Hammer's career and life. Hammer, who passed away in 2019, believed that art and the body were inextricably linked, a philosophy she articulated in her films and discussions.

O'Connor's film deviates from traditional documentary formats. It begins with Hammer's coming out as a lesbian in the 1970s, introducing her birth only midway through the narrative. The documentary contains no conventional talking-head interviews with curators, scholars, or artists, and provides minimal historical context for Hammer's work within 20th-century art history.

Hammer's oeuvre often depicted nudity and explicit erotic encounters, particularly in her 1970s films like“Multiple Orgasm” ( 1976 ) and“Dyketactics” ( 1974 ), which are now recognized as foundational works in experimental queer cinema. A notable exception, her 1982 film“Pond and Waterfall,” which primarily features a rippling pond and submerged plants, was presented at the Leslie-Lohman Museum's 2018 retrospective with a stethoscope, inviting viewers to listen to their own heartbeats as a personal soundtrack. Hammer herself articulated her desire for a tactile viewing experience, stating before a screening of her films,“I want this screening to be tactile. I want you to see and feel the images that are on the screen.”

“Barbara Forever” prominently features Hammer's own footage and voiceover, showcasing iconic scenes such as labia superimposed over arid canyons from“Multiple Orgasm,” naked women dancing in“Dyketactics,” and her suggestive gaze in“Nitrate Kisses” ( 1992 ). The film also traces Hammer's early artistic journey, which began after she married a man and embarked on a new life as a lesbian in the Bay Area in the mid- 1970s. She made her first work,“Schizy” ( 1968–72 ), without formal art or cinema education, using her bifocals to create hazy visuals.

Hammer officially came out in 1974, reflecting on the profound impact of physical intimacy. She said in a voiceover in“Barbara Forever,”“Touching another woman's body, it changed my life. It had to be shown.” Her early films portrayed lesbian sex through montages of bodies, emphasizing touch and sensation. Hammer recalled that her first lesbian experience“reinforced my own outline of my body.”

Despite initial rejections from mainstream institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art due to its depictions of lesbian lovemaking, Hammer's career gained traction. The Museum of Modern Art now owns nine of her works and recently used one to promote an exhibition on the body and art. The National Endowment for the Arts initially declined her funding. However, her prominence grew after curator John Hanhardt included her in the 1987 Whitney Biennial. Her estate is now represented by Company Gallery and KOW, and she participated in three additional Whitney Biennials. The Whitney also featured her in last year's“Sixties Surreal,” an exhibition re-examining 1960s art history beyond Pop and Minimalism.

O'Connor's documentary also highlights Hammer's lasting influence, showing her screening a film for schoolchildren and conducting a workshop on camera operation, where she emphasized the physical connection between the artist and the lens. Her archive is preserved at Yale University's Beinecke Library. Footage filmed before her death in 2019 shows Hammer packing her films and documents in her New York apartment, stating,“It's more than my life. It's a history of queer art.”

Source: ARTnews

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