Heather Phillipson selects Hannah Black as a Future Great in ArtReview

Heather Phillipson chose Hannah Black for ArtReview's Future Greats feature in its January & February 2016 issue. Black, an artist and writer based in Berlin, creates work that feels tough, unprocessed, and restless, delivering a brutal optimism. Her practice spans writing, videos, objects, drawing, and speaking, addressing gender, race, class, sex, sexuality, love, and subjugation. Black's work gives weight to bodies and interiors, with even her tweets having visceral impact, opening living wounds. She collapses body, thing, and theory, with works that glow with emotion and apply pressure on structures, sometimes using knives. Her marks are alert and expose more, disdaining polished appearances. The poet Lyn Hejinian's ideas on poetic language resonate with Black's talent for redrawing sensible realities through politically charged materials. Black is described as a vigilant thinker, maker, and writer who confronts major problems without display. Her work has been exhibited at W139 in Amsterdam, Embassy in Edinburgh, 155 Freeman/Triple Canopy in New York, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, and Sala Luis Miro Quesada Garland in Lima. She participated in the Whitney ISP from 2013 to 2014 and serves as a contributing editor at The New Inquiry.