The first monograph on an artist whose<br>provocative and ultimately deeply moving<br>work played an essential part in women s<br>transformation of the art world. Hannah Wilke s artwork, like her life, frames a heroic story<br>about formal invention and social activism, personal loyalties<br>and individual freedom, and, above all, breathtaking risk. A<br>defining presence in the emerging community of women<br>artists in the 1960s and 70s, Wilke developed a unique and<br>controversial visual language in response to her own and<br>women s experience. An unapologetic individualist, she<br>celebrated her relationships with men as well as women and<br>frankly explored the pleasures of sexuality.<br>Using a wide range of nontraditional mediums, including latex<br>and chewing gum as well as photography and film, she<br>irreverently paid tribute to predecessors from Marcel<br>Duchamp to David Smith. Focusing on the body as instrument<br>and object of visual expression, Wilke made her art an<br>unremitting self-exploration without false modesty (when<br>her naked body was an uncomplicated delight to behold) or<br>shame (when it was mercilessly blighted by cancer). Wilke s<br>art is inseparable from Wilke the person bold, sometimes<br>outrageous, and, ultimately, heartbreakingly courageous.