Guggenheim conservator Francesca Esmay guides a close-looking exercise of the conservation considerations given to this work.
Transcript:
Francesca Esmay: Hi, I’m Francesca Esmay. I’m the Alfred Flechtheim Director of Engagement, Conservation, and Collections Care. Welcome!
Eva Hesse’s "Expanded Expansion", made in 1969, is composed of a series of segmented sections, each with two primary elements:
First, there are vertical fiberglass and polyester resin poles, which provide a framework and structure for the object. The poles are about ten feet tall and rest on the gallery floor, while their tops simply lean back against the wall. The yellowed poles have a shiny appearance, like hard candy.
And second, there are panels of latex rubber–saturated cheesecloth that span between each of those vertical supports and resemble a heavy, skin-like fabric.
Together, these two elements are meant to enable the adaptable spatial engagement suggested in the work’s title—that is, to expand or contract as it occupies rooms of varying size. In its current installation, the work is around 30 feet wide.
From afar the work possesses a clear sense of unity and repetition due to its thirteen similar-sized sections of latex rubber panels, each of which are roughly two feet wide. In fact, the work is composed of three separate sections: the one at the far left has two latex panels, the center section has four latex panels, and the section on the right is the largest, with seven latex panels.
This object was produced when the artist was 34 years old, a year before her death and at a time when she had become too ill to execute works on her own, especially at this scale. So, in this instance, Hesse enlisted the help of fabricators and assistants who composed the elements under her direction, in her New York City studio in Lower Manhattan.
If you look closely, you can see the dabbing and brushing patterns of the different hands applying the latex rubber. Where the application is thinner, it is lighter and allows light to pass through, whereas the thicker areas of application look darker and more opaque. The fine creasing that you see throughout the panels is original—the panels were fabricated over very thin plastic sheets on the floor because Hesse liked the texture that it left on the rubber.
This object, when new, was a very pale-yellow color. When we more closely observe the color of the work today, we see that each of the panels have darkened but not uniformly. There is one panel—the second in from the left side—which has a reddish tone and is much darker than the others. Following extensive scientific analysis, we have a few theories as to why, but historic photos show that this section appeared similar to the material surrounding it when it was new.
The latex rubber material has also become brittle, losing its ability to fully expand and contract within the space as the artist intended. If you draw your attention to the very top of the latex rubber panels, you can observe that some of the folds along those upper edges are now completely static and frozen into position. In contrast, the piece—when new—would have exhibited loose and natural draping, depending on how taut or slack it was when positioned in a given space.
The dramatic changes to this object’s materials over time are a result of multiple types of chemical mechanisms as latex rubber, synthetic resin, and fiberglass are exposed to light, humidity, and oxygen.
To read the full transcript, go to Guggenheim.org/audio.
