The Female Closet

The Female Closet
(Barbara Hammer, 1998)

The Female Closet exposes the misrepresentation of lesbians in art history through a look at the lives and work of three lesbian artists: Staten Island photographer Alice Austen (1866–1952), German Dadaist Hannah Höch (1889–1978), and contemporary New York painter Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965). Austen and Höch kept their sexuality largely closeted, becoming targets of hushed speculation and gossip. By contrast, Eisenman, the product of a different era, freely claims her lesbianism. Through personal correspondence, archival media, and interviews with curators, historians, and activists, Hammer demonstrates how these artists’ sexuality—whether closeted or not—influenced their work, careers, and legacies. But she also issues a call for change. Even as the film was being made, the Alice Austen House Museum board refused to officially recognize Austen’s lesbianism, and a MoMA retrospective of Höch’s work omitted mention of her sexuality from the exhibition’s wall didactics. The Female Closet unearths this buried history so that lesbian contributions to art can be known and celebrated. 

The Female Closet screened in the program Art & Technology Update on January 22, 1998. 
 

Images: Courtesy of The Barbara Hammer Estate and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.