COURTESY THE ARTIST
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University has acquired the archives of Barbara Hammer, the artist and filmmaker who has for decades explored gender roles and bodily connection between viewers and films. The library, which is based in New Haven, Connecticut, will make the archives available for researchers starting next year.
The archives include notebooks, photographs, journals, and manuscripts related to Hammer’s work, which is often considered a landmark oeuvre in the history of queer cinema. Yale has in the past acquired some of her early films, among them Dyketactics (1974) and Double Strength (1978).
“I am delighted that my archives will live alongside and be in conversation with those of artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, among others who experimented in their work, while making important contributions to the social and sexual landscape,” Hammer said in a statement.
Hammer is having a moment in New York, where, next month, shows of her work will open at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art as well as Company Gallery on the Lower East Side. Some of her moving-image works will also be shown at the New York Film Festival, as part of the “Projections” program of experimental film running October 6-9.