[Frameworks] Fwd: Barbara Hammer: Women I Love opening Friday, June 24

[Eric Theise]

I hadn't returned to the Bay Area by the time this Barbara Hammer show –
photographs mostly, but also films projected digitally – opened but I went
a few Saturdays ago and it was a treat. Worth going for the photographs
alone but Ratio 3 did the right thing and erected a wall to make their back
gallery a good bit more light-tight and the three films projected there
look great (the four others are displayed on a pair of wall mounted
monitors). One could easily spend an hour or two taking it all in.

This coming Saturday the 13th is the last day. The gallery's open every day
until then from 11a-5p. I took a couple of friends along as a surprise so I
RSVPed via Ratio 3's website <https://www.ratio3.org/> and that's probably
a good idea.

In San Francisco's Mission District, across the street from the 24th &
Mission BART stop.

& it was news to me that the neighboring gallery, Et Al., has turned one of
their spaces into a mostly art-focused bookstore.

Eric


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ratio 3 <gallery at ratio3.org>
Date: Tue, Jun 21, 2022 at 2:17 PM
Subject: Barbara Hammer: Women I Love opening Friday, June 24
To: <erictheise at gmail.com>


June 24 – August 13, 2022 – Featuring artworks made while Hammer was living
in San Francisco, Women I Love comprises the most extensive presentation of
Hammer’s work on the West Coast to date.
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌
[image: Barbara Hammer, On the Road, Big Sur, California, 1975]

*On the Road, Big Sur, California, 1975, *2017. Silver gelatin print, 8 x
12 inches
*Barbara Hammer : Women I Love*
June 24 – August 13, 2022
Opening: Friday, June 24, 5 – 8pm
On view: Wednesday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm and by appointment
Schedule a visit

Ratio 3 is pleased to present *Women I Love*, an exhibition of Barbara
Hammer’s early photographs and films. The exhibition, like the film after
which it is titled, offers an immersive introduction to the distinctive
combination of technical experimentation and earnest intimacy that defined
Hammer’s singular vision of lesbian identity and authorship in the 1970s.
Featuring artworks made while Hammer was living in San Francisco, *Women I
Love* comprises the most extensive presentation of Hammer’s work on the
West Coast to date.

Hammer’s black and white photographs appear throughout the exhibition,
beginning with a selection of vintage silver gelatin prints made by Hammer
herself, and continuing with a suite of recently editioned photographs
printed from Hammer’s archived negatives. From self-portraits to candid
shots of women—alone and in groups—in various states of repose and reverie,
each photograph provides a glimpse into Hammer’s evolving life and work.
Whether unflinchingly erotic or deliberately obscured by lens flares and
double-exposures, Hammer’s photographs are invariably generous. In many
regards, these stylistically varied photographs of the artist and her
friends and lovers mark the beginning of the iconoclastic course Hammer
would chart through subsequent decades.

While the judicious use of optical effects in her photographs attest to
Hammer’s embrace of technical experimentation, her inventive command of her
media is most apparent in her moving images captured on 16mm film. A
monitor in the second gallery presents two of Hammer’s most iconic short
films *Dyketactics* and *Menses* (both 1974), in a continuous alternating
loop. Accompanied by soundtracks of synthesizers and distorted voices, the
films present surreal images of uninhibited women congregating in groups,
playfully satirizing womanhood and femininity into scenes that are equally
touching and absurd.

Further into the exhibition, another pair of short films, *Multiple Orgasm*
(1976) and *Haircut* (1978) demonstrate the breadth and continuous growth
of Hammer’s filmmaking practice. Despite being made only years apart, these
two silent films are strikingly distinct; where one is overtly erotic and
composed of densely overlaid color footage, the other documents a quotidian
scene in black and white. Together, the films demonstrate Hammer’s
consistently inventive approach to experimentation, and the range of visual
styles through which she explored and celebrated the nuances of different
kinds of intimacy—from the autoerotic to the subtler acts of nurture.

The final gallery features three longer films, screened successively in an
hour-long sequence; *Women I Love* and *Superdyke*, two of Hammer’s most
celebrated films, followed by *Superdyke Meets Madame X*, a collaboration
between Hammer and Max Almy. The films and photographs comprising the
exhibition highlight Hammer’s singular ability to recognize and capture the
nuances of intimacy and sexuality in lesbian relationships and communities.
Hammer’s work of the 1970s was pioneering both in its influence on
contemporary filmmaking and in its representation of lesbian love and life.

Barbara Hammer was born in 1939 in Hollywood, CA and died in New York, NY
in 2019. Recognized as an influential figure in experimental film, Hammer
exhibited extensively throughout her career. Her work has been the subject
of film retrospectives at major institutions internationally, including the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern, and the National Gallery
of Art in DC.

This exhibition is accompanied by a brochure with a commissioned essay by
Sandra S. Phillips, Curator Emerita of Photography at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art. Ratio 3 thanks the Estate of Barbara Hammer and
Company, New York, for their contributions and collaboration in
presenting *Women
I Love*.

For all inquiries, please contact: theo at ratio3.org
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