TOURNIER: Your practice is regularly framed in relation to environmental issues. How do you observe these concerns within your own creation?

HASSINGER: I think I have always been anxious about the natural world. It has always been an inspiration to me. By deploying materials that are fundamentally unnatural, I replicate ideas of nature. Right outside my window, there are pieces of wire rope embedded in a concrete base. The angle at which they are positioned evokes the caress of the blowing wind. That is how—even though nothing in the composition is natural—the idea of nature endures through the relational interplay of each element.

In 1981, she contributed to the landmark thirteenth issue of the journal Heresies, titled "Cultural Ecology." Conceived by Michelle Stuart and Joyce Kozloff, this historic issue theorized the intersection of the feminist revolution and the environmental movement. Hassinger presented Forest (1980), an installation realized for Art on the Beach at Battery Park, where her wire trees interacted with the site's actual topography to articulate a "longing for a lost natural space." These steel-gray rods, imbued with a post-apocalyptic quality, mimicked the tilt of surrounding saplings, seeking a harmony that industrial technology—of which the cable is a pure byproduct—threatens with extinction.

Feminist criticism, championed notably by Lucy Lippard, redefined the contours of minimal abstraction in a similar vein. As early as 1966, with her exhibition Eccentric Abstraction, Lippard hesitated a sculptural sensibility where form, far from being a monolithic and authoritarian whole, presents itself as a "vacillating and vulnerable" fragment. This concept resonates deeply with Hassinger’s insistence on using consciously allusive materials that hover between organic expressiveness and pure materiality.

TOURNIER: With several decades of hindsight, do you consider yourself a minimalist?

HASSINGER: I consider myself a minimalist artist. I make very simple, recognizable, and often circular forms, as is the case with this piece, which is called Looks like the Wind. Whether other minimalists consider me as such is another matter.

TOURNIER: Do you think that Minimal art remains highly influential in art schools among students, perhaps more so in America than in France?

HASSINGER: Yes, because it is part of history; it is part of what allowed the contemporary to emerge. I am no longer entirely aware of what students discuss in art schools because I no longer teach. But I know that with time, there is more and more art, and there are more and more artists. To participate in the contemporary, students must understand the underlying concepts of art that will allow them to make their own contribution. Some artists endure for centuries. And some are here today, gone tomorrow.

We extend our deepest gratitude to Ms. Hassinger for taking the time to answer our questions, for the kindness she showed throughout our exchange, and for the way in which she evokes every facet of her enduring practice.

ALIX BOILLOTINTERVIEW

MAREN HASSINGER INTERVIEW

HERCULESBETWEEN VICEAND VIRTUE

THE ANIMAL TURN

CAN ONE HEAR A SCREAM IN AN IMAGE?

THE HOUSE OF DUST

O'KEEFFE/ BEL BAHAR

ANNA ATKINS CYANOTYPES

WHAT GRUNGEPHOTOGRAPHYCAN'T DO

CONTACT

ALIX
BOILLOT
INTERVIEW

MAREN
HASSINGER
INTERVIEW

HERCULES
BETWEEN VICE
AND VIRTUE

THE
ANIMAL
TURN

CAN ONE
HEAR A SCREAM
IN AN IMAGE?

THE HOUSE
OF
DUST

O'KEEFFE
/
BEL BAHAR

ANNA
ATKINS
CYANOTYPES

WHAT GRUNGE
PHOTOGRAPHY
CAN'T DO