Quotes from Eva Hesse

Mushy novels, pretty pictures, pretty sculpture, decorations on the wall, nice parallel lines - make me sick.

If I'm O.K., I will abandon restrictions and curbs imposed on myself. Not physical ones, but those restrictive tabs on my inner being, on solely myself. I will strip me of superficial dishonesties. I will paint against every rule I or others have invisibly placed.

I am ultimately convinced that people must first be told that so and so is great ,and then, after a period of given time, they come to believe it for themselves.

I think art is a total thing. A total person giving a contribution. It is an essence, a soul.. In my inner soul art and life are inseparable

Life doesn't last, art doesn't last

In my inner soul art and life are inseparable.

I have the most openness about my art... It's total freedom and willingness to work. I'm willing really to walk on the edge, and if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go. But in my life - maybe because my life has been so traumatic, so absurd - there hasn't been one normal, happy thing.

Don't ask what it means or what it refers to. Don't ask what the work is. Rather, see what the work does.

Art is the easiest thing in my life, and that's ironic. It doesn't mean I've worked little on it, but it's the only thing I never had to... I have no fear. I could take risks.

My life and art have not been separated. They have been together.

I would like the work to be non-work. This means that it would find its way beyond my preconceptions...It is the unknown quantity from which and where I want to go. As a thing, an object, it accedes to its non-logical self. It is something, it is nothing.

Art and life are inseparable.

I have a confidence in my understanding of formal aesthetics and I don't want to be aware of it or make that my problem.

Maybe if I really believe in me, trust me without any calculated plan, who knows what will happen?

I am not sure what my stand on lasting really is.

Don't ask what the work is. Rather, see what the work does.

I should like to achieve free, spontaneous painting delineating a powerful, strong structured image. One must be possible with the other. A difficult problem in itself, but one which I shall achieve.

Everything for me has always been opposites; nothing has ever been in the middle... My life never had anything normal or in the center.

I am interested in solving an unknown factor of art and an unknown factor of life.

What makes a tight circle or a tight little square box more of an intellectual statement than something done emotionally, I don't know. Art is an essence, a center.