LESBIAN FILMMAKER and video artist Barbara Hammer, now in her early seventies, has been exploding long-held myths about both gender and the art of filmmaking since the 1970’s. Her portrayals of lesbian sex, menstruation, female orgasm, and the full range of human sexuality have propelled her into the forefront of radical lesbian filmmaking and cinema itself.
Hammer has made over eighty films and videos that have been shown at Sundance, Toronto, Frameline, and Berlin, among other international film festivals. Her awards include the Leo Award for outstanding contributions to film, the Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award, and the Women in Film Award. She has appeared in no fewer than three Whitney Biennials and has had retrospectives at the Centre Pompidou, the Digital University in Taiwan, and Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Now coinciding with the recent publication of Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life (Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010), retrospectives of her work will be held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, and the Tate Modern in London.
