Barbara Hammer

Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hammer is known for having created experimental films dealing with women's issues such as gender roles, lesbian relationships, coping with aging, and family life. She resided in New York City and Kerhonkson, New York, and taught each summer at the European Graduate School. Her maternal grandparents were Ukrainian; her grandfather was from Zbarazh. Hammer was raised without religion, but her grandmother was Roman Catholic.

In 1961, Hammer graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and married Clayton Henry Ward, on the condition that he take her traveling around the world. Her career could be divided into three stages according to her developing focus of work: early career stage (1960s–1970s), mid-career stage (1980s–mid-1990s), and late-career stage (mid-1990s–2018).

1960s–1970s: Early career and cultural feminism

Her early films, made during her time at San Francisco State University, focused on female and homosexual topics and embodied the 1970s notion of cultural feminism. During this early stage of Hammer's career, especially in the mid-1970s, her role as the only women filmmaker who openly claimed as a lesbian was widely indicated in her works. Her works during this period were later critiqued as romanticism and essentialism. There are many physical and sexual representations of the female body, emphasizing the idea of expressing love, desire, and erotic pleasure between lesbians openly. Those films aim to illustrate personal and private ideas and beliefs and hope the audience can get physically involved. As Hammer talked about in a later interview, one of the reasons for making this film was that there were no lesbian films existing during that time. There are many intimate shots in Dyketactics: women take off their clothes and dance with each other, embrace with nature and touch each other, and there is a love-making sequence, which Hammer is personally involved in. The film includes many illustrations of the female body, including nudity, self-touching, and masturbating. Hammer's choice of cinematography in Superdyke was noticeable; for example, she used close-up to capture female bodies on the beach in order to emphasize the tactile sensation of the bodies and the surrounding; she panned the camera together with female characters' movements in a dancing scene to create the motive sensation. By doing so, Hammer explores the sensual potential of filmmaking. This film is also Hammer's way of exploring her decision to relocate to New York City, where she remained until her death.

Nitrate Kisses (1992): Nitrate Kisses is produced under the shadow of the AIDS crisis and unveils the marginalization that homosexual people in America have been subjected to since World War I. This film reflects on the neglected or even forgotten past of the lesbian community and other minority groups. Hammer's voice-over commentary and various older lesbians' testimonies are accompanied by shots of desolate scenery and depressed city views, creating a strong sense of incompleteness and precariousness.

Notable works from this period:

Tender Fictions (1995): Tender Fictions is an autobiographical film that reflects Hammer's early life experiences and is also a sequel to her well-known documentary film Nitrate Kisses.

Evidentiary Bodies (2018): Evidentiary Bodies is Hammer's final piece. It includes a melding of performance, artistic installation, and film, acting as a culmination of her involvement with the right-to-die movement.

In 2007, Hammer was honored with an exhibition and tribute at the Chinese Cultural University Digital Imaging Center in Taipei. In 2010, Hammer had a one-month exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Additionally, in 2013, she was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship for her film Waking Up Together. She also had exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London and at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2012; for the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival; and at the Koch Oberhuber Woolfe in Berlin in both 2011 and 2014.

Her films were regarded as being controversial because they focused on taboo, feminine topics such as menstruation, the female orgasm, and lesbianism. Hammer experimented with different film gauges in the 1980s, especially with 16mm film, in order to show just how fragile film itself is.

Hammer's film Dyketactics (1974) illustrates the importance of the female body to her work, and is shot in two sequences: the first sequence depicts a group of nude women gathering in the countryside to dance, bathe, touch one another, and interact with the environment; in the second sequence, Hammer herself is filmed sharing an intimate moment with another woman within a Bay Area house. Between the two sequences, Hammer aimed to create an erotic film that used different film language than the mainstream, heterosexual erotic films of the time. She called it a "lesbian commercial".

Hammer's early films utilized natural imagery, such as trees and fruit, associating them with the female body.

This style of filmmaking was met with mixed reactions. In a review of Hammer's films Women I Love (1976) and Double Strength (1978), critic Andrea Weiss noted, "It's become fashionable for women's bodies to be represented by pieces of fruit," and criticized Hammer for "adopting the masculine romanticized view of women." According to Michael Schell, "her relentless pursuit of an artistic vision, informed by the American tradition of experimental cinema, whose integrity was personal, not simply political, can pose a challenge to the assumptions of both sub- and mainstream cultures".

The San Francisco State University Queer Cinema Project supports queer filmmakers through the annual Barbara Hammer Awards, which grants two SFSU students funding towards the completion of a queer-focused project.

Illness, right to die activism, and death

In 2006, Hammer was diagnosed with stage-three ovarian cancer. After twelve years of chemotherapy, she fought for the right of self-euthanasia. She referenced this in her works, such as her 2009 film A Horse Is Not a Metaphor, in which she expressed the ups and downs of a cancer patient. Through her experience, she became an advocate for the right to die movement and fought for the New York Medical Aid in Dying Act.

On October 10, 2018, Hammer presented "The Art of Dying", a performative lecture at the Whitney Museum of Art.

Hammer died from endometrioid ovarian cancer on March 16, 2019, at the age of 79. She had been receiving palliative hospice care at the time of her death.

Filmography

Contribution to Light (1968)
The Baptism (1968)
White Cassandra (1968)
Schizy (1968)
Clay I Love You II (1968–69)
Aldebaran Sees (1969)
Barbara Ward Will Never Die (1969)
Cleansed II (1969)
Death of a Marriage (1969)
Elegy (1970)
Play or 'Yes', 'Yes', 'Yes (1970)
Traveling: Marie and Me (1970)
The Song of the Clinking Cup (1972)
I Was/I Am (1973)
Sisters! (1974)
A Gay Day (1973)
Yellow Hammer (1973)
Dyketactics (1974)
X (1974)
Women's Rites, or Truth is the Daughter of Time (1974)
Menses (1974)
Jane Brakhage (1975)
Superdyke (1975)
Psychosynthesis (1975)
Superdyke Meets Madame X (1975)
San Diego Women's Music Festival (1975)
Guatemala Weave (1975)
Moon Goddess (1975) – with G. Churchman
Eggs (1972)
Multiple Orgasm (1976)
Women I Love (1976)
Stress Scars and Pleasure Wrinkles (1976)
The Great Goddess (1977)
Double Strength (1978)
Home (1978)
Haircut (1978)
Available Space (1978)
Sappho (1978)
Dream Age (1979)
Take Back the Night March on Broadway, 1979 (1979)
Our Trip (1980)
Lesbian Humor: A Collection of Short Films (1980–1987)
Pictures for Barbara (1980)
Machu Picchu (1980)
Natura Erotica (1980)
See What You Hear What You See (1980)
Our Trip (1981)
Arequipa (1981)
Pools (1981) – with B. Klutinis
Synch-Touch (1981)
The Lesbos Film (1981)
Pond and Waterfall (1982)
Audience (1983)
See What You Hear What You See (1983)
Stone Circles (1983)
New York Loft (1983)
Bamboo Xerox (1984)
Pearl Diver (1984)
Bent Time (1984)
Doll House (1984)
Parisian Blinds (1984)
Tourist (1984–85)
Optic Nerve (1985)
Hot Flash (1985)
Would You Like to Meet Your Neighbor? A New York Subway Tape (1985)
Bedtime Stories (1986)
The History of the World According to a Lesbian (1986)
Snow Job: The Media Hysteria of AIDS (1986)
No No Nooky T.V. (1987)
Place Mattes (1987)
Endangered (1988)
Drive, She Said (1988)
Two Bad Daughters (1988)
Still Point (1989)
T.V. Tart (1989)
Sanctus (1990)
Vital Signs (1991)
Dr. Watson's X-Rays (1991)
Nitrate Kisses (1992)
Save Sex (1993)
Shirley Temple and Me (1993)
Out in South Africa (1994)
Tender Fictions (1996)
The Female Closet (1997)
Blue Film No. 6: Love Is Where You Find It (1998)
Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions (2000)
History Lessons (2000)
My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Identities (2001)
Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War (2001)
Resisting Paradise (2003)
Love/Other (2005)
Dying Women of Jeju-Do (2007)
Fucking Different New York (2007) (segment: "Villa Serbolloni")
A Horse Is Not a Metaphor (2009) (Teddy Award-winner)
Generations (2010)
Maya Deren's Sink (2011)
Welcome to This House (2015)
Lesbian Whale (2015)
Evidentiary Bodies (2018)

Retrospectives

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, Spain (9 June 2020 – October 18, 2020)
"Barbara Hammer: In This Body", Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (2019)
"Color Me Barbara", Retrospective at NewsFest, New York City, New York (2019)
Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York (2019)
Austrian Film Museum, Vienna, Austria (2018)
Whitney Museum of Art, New York City, New York (October 10, 2018)
Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York City, New York (2017)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2015)
Kunsthall Oslo, Oslo, Norway (2013)
Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque Free Screen, Toronto, Canada (Winter 2013)
Jeu de paume, Paris, France (June 12 – July 1, 2012)
Tate Modern, London, England (February 3 – 26, 2012)
Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York (September 15 – October 13, 2010)
XII Muestra Internacional de Cine Realizado por Mujeres, Zaragosa, Spain (2009)
Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain (2008)
Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan (2007)
Turin International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Turin, Italy (2006)
Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2005)
Irish Film Centre, Dublin, Ireland (2004)
Australia Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia (2003)
Seoul Art Cinema, Seoul, Korea (2002)
Women Make Waves Film/Video Festival, Taipei, Taiwan (2002)
Women Make Waves Film/Video Festival, Taipei, Taiwan (2000)
Immaginaria, 6th Women's Film Festival, Bologna, Italy (1998)
yyz Gallery, Toronto, Canada (1997)
Out in South Africa Film Festival, Johannesburg/Cape Town, South Africa (1994)
Film Forum, Directors Guild of America, Los Angeles, California (1993)
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska (1993)
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska (1992)
Retrospective: Film Forum, Directors Guild of America, Los Angeles (1991)
Panorama, The Berlin International Film Festival, Berlin, Germany (1986)
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1985)

References

External links

Official Website
Barbara Hammer at UbuWeb Experimental Film Archive
Barbara Hammer at Women Make Movies website
Barbara Hammer in the collection of MoMA
"Barbara Hammer's Exit Interview," Masha Gessen, New Yorker, February 24, 2019.
Barbara Hammer Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.