SFX: Throughout, Hesse’s words echo and repeat, moving L-R across audio channels, sometimes coming at us, sometimes moving  

SFX: Hesse’s non non non non coming toward us 

NARRATOR:  

Eva Hesse liked to break the rules. Sans II is a perfect example – a sculpture that hangs on the wall. She was one of those people who just refused to conform. Here she is in 1970: 

HESSE:  

My idea was to counteract everything I’ve ever learnt or been taught, to find something else.  

I was less interested in the specific form as the circle, or the square, the rectangle, and was really working to get to non-anthropomorphic and non-geometric. Non non! Like, where you couldn’t connote any reference. 

 SFX: Hesse’s words echo and repeat Non Non Non Non 

HESSE:  

At times I thought—the more thought, the greater the art. But I wonder about that. I think there’s a lot I’ll just as well let happen, and maybe it will come out the better for it.  

JOHNS:  

She made a papier mache original that was the shape of this surface.  

NARRATOR:  

Hesse’s studio assistant Doug Johns — 

JOHNS:  

I draped the fiberglass over the top of the mold first, so that it was hanging down, so it’s all very rough. And it’s that spontaneity, of just sort of flopping it over and then letting it be… 

SFX: Hesse’s words echo and repeat Repetition Repetition 

HESSE:  

Repetition exaggerates. If something is meaningful, maybe it’s more meaningful said ten times. If something is absurd, it’s much more absurd, if it’s repeated. I was always aware of the absurdities in my work. And it was always more interesting than making something average, normal, right sized, right proportion.  

SFX: The refrain of her echoing voice