User:Yiyi Gu/Barbara Hammer

= Barbara Hammer =

Career
(*The underlined sentences are copied directly from the original version of Career section.*)

Hammer's career worked within experimental 16mm film and video, spanning five decades. Hammer was both innovative and productive. Her topics of work were wide-ranging, from the beauty of the body and love to the discussion of politics and society, and her body of work includes almost 100 films. Throughout her career, Hammer kept challenging herself and exploring new and unfamiliar topics. 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.

Hammer was actively involved in media making industry during this period, including learning new skills and techniques, organizing premieres of her own works, opening film workshops and lessons that are related to women filmmaking, etc.

Notable works from this period:

Dyketactics (1974): Dyketactics is one of the most prominent works in the history of lesbian cinema. It was made during Hammer's time at San Francisco State University. As Hammer talked about in her later interview, one of the reasons for making this film was that there were no lesbian films existed during that time. There are many intimate shots in Dyketactics: women take off their clothes and dance with each other, embrace with the nature and touch each other, and a love-making sequence, which Hammer is personally involved in that scene. The slow and gentle actions of the women onscreen and the use of superimpositions and careful framing make those erotic scenes romantic and sensual, differentiating this film from pornography in both narrative and visual forms. Through Dyketactics, Hammer presented lesbian love-making which had not been shown in earlier films, and set a milestone in lesbian cinema.

Superdyke (1975): Superdyke is made in the early stage of homosexual liberation. 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.

Double Strength (1978): Double Strength focuses on Hammer's relationship with trapeze artist Terry Sendgraff. Though this is a film about this couple's relationship, Hammer does not appear much in the camera. Most of the shots record the body of Sendgraff while she is on the trapezes. There are many superimpositions of Sendgraff's body and shadow and interactions between Sendgraff's body and daily items. The visual style and technics of Double Strength are consistent with Hammer's other works during this period.

1980s - mid-1990s: Mid-career and Deepened Focus
Hammer's mid-career films danced between short film and feature-length. This part of her career was staged by her decision to move from California to New York, provoked in part by her desire to remove herself from the social and political environment that had directed her towards the cultural feminism of her early films, which were later so harshly critiqued. Moving from simple representations of bodies which was not recognized as fine art, Hammer's focus shifted to more formal works. She started to explore the relationship between the self and the outside world, including light, life, nature, society, government, etc. With the deepened theme and more elaborate production of her works due to her early efforts, many of her works during this period gained attention from the public.

Notable works from this period:

Bent Time (1984): Bent Time is a travel film recording places from California to Mexico. The abundant uses of wide-angle lenses and stop-motions bend light within the frame to simulate the theoretical bending of time. 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 queer Americans 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.

mid-1990s - 2018: Late Career and Self Reflection
Hammer's late career coincides with her rise to public prominence with museum retrospectives and her acquisition of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She focused more on identity politics during this period. The theme of wars, health issues, and liberties came to Hammer's attention. She explored the relationship between art and social issues in her works.

Her interest in the body was still an essential part of her works. However, instead of the beauty of bodies, her camera shot more about the body when it is aged, hurt, and moved. This was directly connected to her arduous cancer battle, which began with her diagnosis in 2006.

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.

History Lessons (2000): History Lessons focuses on the erased lesbian past. With the suppressing history, the historical materials of the lesbian community were hard to find. To solve this problem, Hammer uses many commercial materials, including pornography, pulp fiction, etc. Those footages are juxtaposed with comic intent, making the style of the film relatively light and comedic.

My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Identities (2001): In My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Identities, Hammer explores her Ukrainian Identity and focuses on the geography, culture, and history of Ukraine.

A Horse is Not a Metaphor (2009): A Horse is Not a Metaphor is an autobiographical depiction of Hammer's fight with and the remission of her third-stage ovarian cancer.

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.