K8 Hardy (born 1977, Fort Worth, Texas) is an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

.(2018, March 26). Hardy, K8. ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists.'' Retrieved 14 Dec. 2020, from https://www-oxfordartonline-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-2297903. Hardy's work spans painting, sculpture, video, and photography and her work has been exhibited internationally at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

Tensta Konsthall Tensta konsthall is a center for contemporary art in the Stockholm suburb of Tensta, northwest of the city center. The gallery works with artists from both Sweden and abroad, often in conjunction with local associations and organizations in the ...

e, Karma International, and the Dallas Contemporary.(2018, March 26). Hardy, K8. ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists.'' Retrieved 14 Dec. 2020, from https://www-oxfordartonline-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-2297903. Hardy's work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and

the Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

. She is a founding member of the

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

artist collective An artist collective or art group or artist group is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything t ...

and journal LTTR. She lives and works in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

Early life and education

Hardy was born on October 27, 1977, in

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

, Texas. Hardy uses the moniker "K8" as shorthand for her first name which she adopted while publishing

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

s in high school.White, M. (2008). Opposition + Equivocation: K8 Hardy. ''Art Papers'', ''32''(3), 18–23. She attended

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and graduated with a degree in film and feminist/queer theory in 2000. She studied video with

Elisabeth Subrin Elisabeth Subrin is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, screenwriter, and visual artist. She is known for her interdisciplinary practice in the contemporary art and independent film worlds. She is a professor in Temple University's Department of Film and ...

through the Five College Consortium. Later, she worked alongside

Miranda July Miranda July (born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger; February 15, 1974) is an American film director, screenwriter, actress and author. Her body of work includes film, fiction, monologue, digital presentations and live performance art. She wrote, di ...

and the

Northwest Film Center PAM CUT–Center for an Untold Tomorrow, formerly the ''Northwest Film Center'' is a regional media arts resource and service organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States that was founded to encourage the study, appreciation, and utilizat ...

in Portland, Oregon. In 2003, she studied at the

Independent Study Program in 2003 alongside other artists like Ulrike Mueller and Lisa Oppenheim. Hardy went on to receive an MFA from the

Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a graduate program associated with Bard College that grants Master of Fine Arts degrees. Founded in 1981, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts (otherwise known as the Bard MFA program) is a nontradi ...

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

in 2008.

Work

In 2001, K8 Hardy co-founded LTTR, a genderqueer feminist art collective in New York. The collective's co-creators include Ginger Brooks Takahashi and Emily Roysdon, and, in 2005, Ulrike Müller joined the collective.Campbell, A. (2015). K8 Hardy. ''Aperture'', ''218'', 104–109. LTTR's mission centered on "highlighting the work of radical communities whose goals are sustainable change, queer pleasure, and critical feminist productivity." LTTR first began as a journal and eventually expanded to include live events, screenings, collaborations, read-ins, and workshops. Hardy started a color-photocopy zine, ''FashionFashion'', in 2002. ''FashionFashion'' depicted Hardy styled in second-hand clothing. The zine morphed into a solo exhibition of four oversized books exhibited at Higher Pictures Generation in 2014 and Reena Spaulings Fine Art in 2019. Writer

Andrew Durbin Andrew Durbin is an American poet, novelist, and editor. As of 2019, he has served as editor-in-chief of Frieze (magazine), ''Frieze''. Prior to his position at ''Frieze'', he co-founded Company Gallery, served as the Talks Curator at the Poetry ...

has noted that the zine is somewhere between avant couture and "

riot grrrl Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington, and the greater Pacific Northwest, and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. A subcultural movement ...

esque" and features various

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

s alongside handwritten musings on ghosts. From 2002 to 2007, Hardy and Greenwood created? ''New Report''. The piece featured both artists playing female newscasters for a fictional radio show, WKRH, and reporting on the news. Both artists, clad in

beret A beret ( , ; ; ; ) is a soft, round, flat-crowned cap made of hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, wool felt, or acrylic fibre. Mass production of berets began in the 19th century in Southern France and the north of History of Spain (1808 ...

trench coat A trench coat is a variety of coat made of Waterproof fabric, waterproof heavy-duty fabric, originally developed for British Army officers before the First World War, and becoming popular while used in the Trench warfare, trenches, hence the nam ...

s, and turtlenecks, touch upon subjects such as '60s and '70s feminism, queer politics, and

mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

through various different activities: burning bras, in-depth interviews, and various news reports utilizing a giant pink

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic (), or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publi ...

. In 2004, Hardy performed ''Beautiful Radiating Energy'', at

Reena Spaulings Reena Spaulings is a collective project in the medium of a novel, artist persona, and institutional art gallery active from 2005 to present in New York City. The Gallery's Co-founders and Co-Directors include Carissa Rodriguez, John Kelsey and Em ...

. In the performance piece, Hardy stretched and exercised in front of a projected video while chanting: "I am happy; I am here; I am hurt. I'm ready!" This was the artist's first performance piece in New York. Video footage included images of Hardy's friend Math walking away from the camera, found footage of reactions to the burial of

Baader-Meinhof The Red Army Faction (, ; RAF ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang ( ), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a terrorist organisat ...

terrorists, gay rights parades, and body building competitions. In 2017, Hardy re-staged the performance at Participant Inc. with artist

Raúl de Nieves Raul de Nieves (born 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) is a multimedia artist, performer, and musician. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Early life De Nieves grew up in Michoacán, Mexico. His father passed away when de Nieves was two. Sever ...

as the performer. In 2007, Hardy and Greenwood performed ''New Report Live'' at the

in London. That same year, Hardy performed ''Bare Life'' with the musician and sound artist Stefan Tcherepnin. As inspiration for the piece, both artists responded to texts by Giorgio Agamben that revolved around his concept of ''Bare Life''. Hardy became a founding member of Working Artists and the Greater Economy, or W.A.G.E, in 2008. W.A.G.E. was founded by the artists A.L. Steiner, A.K. Burns, ginger brooks takahashi, and is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

and activist group that aims "to establish sustainable economic relationships between artists and the institutions that contract our labor, and to introduce mechanisms for self-regulation into the art field that collectively bring about a more equitable distribution of its economy." In 2010, the artist created a

capsule collection A capsule wardrobe is a minimalist collection of clothes that can be put together in different ways to cover a variety of outfits and occasions. The aim is to have an outfit suitable for any occasion without owning excessive items of clothing. Thi ...

, titled J'APPROVE, produced by artist Travis Boyer for the 2011 JF & Son pop-up shop in New York. Hardy exhibited several sculptures and photographs in the 2012

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

. Alongside the sculptures and photographs, Hardy organized a performance called ''Untitled Runway Show'' on the exhibition's fourth-floor. The performance included live models on a catwalk wearing anti-couture outfits designed by Hardy. The

set design Scenic design, also known as stage design or set design, is the creation of scenery for theatrical productions including plays and musicals. The term can also be applied to film and television productions, where it may be referred to as prod ...

was by

Oscar Tuazon Oscar Tuazon (née Hansen) is an American artist based in Los Angeles who works in sculpture, architecture, and mixed media. Early life Oscar Tuazon was born Oscar Hansen on July 9, 1975, in a geodesic dome his parents built in the woods at India ...

and the music was by Venus X. In 2016, Hardy premiered her first

feature-length film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation ...

, Outfitumentary. ''Outfitumentary'' is a documentary .... collection of self-portrait videos shot over ten years on a miniature DV camera from 2001 to 2011 and was premiered in 2016 at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

and at the

International Film Festival Rotterdam International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

.BALLARD, T. (2016). Dress up. ''Modern Painters'', ''28''(8), 78–85. In 2020, Hardy exhibited a single ten-foot-long green, yellow, and pink-colored painting, resembling a

maxi pad A menstrual pad is an Absorption (chemistry), absorbent item worn in the Undergarment, underwear when menstruation, menstruating, lochia, bleeding after giving birth, recovering from gynecologic surgery, experiencing a miscarriage or abortion, o ...

, at Reena Spaulings New York.

Johanna Fateman Johanna Rachel Fateman (born May 16, 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the electropunk band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN (band), MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson. Early life an ...

selected the piece as one of her favorite artworks from 2020. Critic

Sarah Nicole Prickett Sarah Nicole Prickett is a writer, art critic and editor. She was the founder and editor of ''Adult'', an arts and criticism magazine that launched in 2013. Early life Prickett was born in London, Ontario. She lived in Toronto and moved to N ...

and artist

Nicole Eisenman Nicole Eisenman (born 1965) is a French-born American artist known for her oil paintings and sculptures. She has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), the Carnegie Prize (2013), and has thrice been included in the Whitney Biennial (1995, ...

have compared the work to a painting as sculpture and sculpture as painting similar to

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

's early soft sculptures,

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career befor ...

's objects, and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

's ''Cut-Out (1948–1950).''

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Source: * 2020, A NEW PAINTING, Reena Spaulings, New York, New York * 2017, K8 Hardy: Undergirding Heroine Ensemble, The Barn, Tivoli, New York * 2016, Docudrama, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles, California * 2016, Aunt Margie, Company, New York * 2015, NEW CUTS K8 HARDY, University of California, Irvine * 2014, YDRAH 8K, Künstlerhaus Halle fur Kunst & Medien, Graz, Austria * 2011, K8 Hardy, Galerie BaliceHertling, Paris, France * 2010, FeminismFormalism, Galerie Sonja Junkers, Munich, Germany * 2010, Freeing the Natural Voice, on the Perpetual Horizon of Devastation, Some Notes on Lying, Hard Hat, Geneva, Switzerland * 2009, Position Series, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York * 2005, ''New Report (collaboration with Wynne Greenwood)'', Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York

Group exhibitions

Source: * 2020 Photography and the Surreal Imagination, The Menil Collection, Houston, US * 2019 Fire, Company Gallery, New York, US * 2018 Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward, ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, US * 2018, Fashion Drive. Extreme Clothing in the Visual Arts, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, CH * 2016, Outfitumentary, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York * 2015, ''Outfitumentary'', Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York * 2012, Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York * 2010, Greater New York, MoMA PS1, Queens, New York * 2010, Fluorescent Adolescent, Schunck: Biennial of Photography and Visual Arts, Heerlen, The Netherlands * 2010, 50 Artists Photograph the Future, Higher Pictures, New York, New York * 2009, Reflections on Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video, Brooklyn Museum, New York

Selected screenings

* 2018, Outfitumentary, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, US * 2016, Outfitumentary, International of Contemporary Arts, London, England, Outfitumentary, Outfest, Los Angeles, California, Outifitumentary, T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival, Poland, Outfitumentary, International Film Festival of Rotterdam, Official Selection, Outfitumentary, Doc Fortnight, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, Outfitumentary, FIT, New York, New York * 2016, Grrrl Germs: A Visual History of Riot Grrrl, (Mark Lukenbill) Spectacle, Brooklyn, New York * 2015, Outfitumentary, Advanced Screening, Pop Montreal, Montreal, Canada * 2008, Video Art and Film by K8 Hardy, Light Industry, New York, New York * 2005, Promiscuous Cinema, Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California * 2004, Basic Needs, Ms. Film Festival, Durham, NC * 2003, Almost Paradise, New York Underground Film Festival, New York, New York * 2003, Swans and Eunuchs, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH * 2003, K8 Hardy, Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, New York, New York * 2003, Works by K8 Hardy, Film Casino, Vienna, Austria (curated by Ulrike Muller) * 2003, Peripheral Produce, Northwest Film Center, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR * 2003, Caution: Open Flame, Flaming Film Festival, Minneapolis, MN * 2003, The Platinum Tapes, Ocularis, Brooklyn, New York (curated by Lauren Cornell) * 2003, Video Marathon, Art in General, New York, New York * 2003, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois

Selected performances

* 2017, Beautiful Radiating Energy with Raúl de Nieves (organized by Rhea Anastas), Participant Inc, New York, New York * 2013, Performance, Kunstverein Graz * 2010, New Paintings, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York (curated by Pati Hertling) * 2010, Evas Arche und der Feminist, Artists Space, New York, New York * 2007, New Report Live: Bankside Power Station, The Tate Modern, London, UK; with Wynne Greenwood Bare Life, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York * 2006, New Report, Hayward Gallery with London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK * 2004, Beautiful Radiating Energy, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, New York * 2004, Beautiful Radiating Energy West Coast Tour, Artists' Television Access, San * 2004, Francisco, California Experimental Media for Feminist Trespass, Pilot Television, Chicago, Illinois

Public Collections

* LUMA foundation collection, Zürich, CH * Museum of Modern Art, New York, US * Whitney Museum of Art, New York, US * Fiorruci Art Trust * Deutsche Bank Headquarters, Frankfurt, DE

Artist's publications and text

* 2018, "K8 Hardy," Artist's Projects, ArtForum, January 2018 * 2016, Queer, "K8 Hardy, Amifesto 2006" editor David Getsy, Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press * 2014, K8 HARDY/YDRAH, 8K editor Christian Eggerer * 2013, How To: Untitled Runway Show D.O.P.E. Press * 2013, Next Time, "Dear Reena Spaulings Fine Art" ed. Geer, David and Pool, Isaac, Macie Gransion and Envoy Enterprises * 2011, Frank Peter John Dick by K8 Hardy; essay Eileen Myles (New York: Capricious Publishing, 2011) * 2011, Mousse Magazine, "Andrea Dworkin" No. 28 April 2011 * 2011, Useless, "The Angst of Commerce", p15, ed. Conrad Ventur (New York: 2010) * 2010, Useless, "The Angst of Commerce" No. 10 December 2010, p15 * 2009, Sessions/Zeitschrift, "Re-working the In-Between, Shaking It Out." May 2009, No. 17, pp 31–34 * 2009, Company, "Advertisement, Performance, Style, and Authenticity" pp138–144, ed. Meghan DellaCrosse, Fawn Krieger, and Claire Sexton, (New York: Art In General, 2009) * 2009, Sessions/Zeitschrift, "Re-working the In-Between, Shaking It Out." May 2009, Ausgabe 17, pp 31–34, ed. Christian Egger and Christian Mayer, Vienna * 2008, Queer Zines, Ed. AA Bronson and Philip Aarons, "Fashionfashion" pp90–91 and "LTTR" pp154–155, (New York: Printed matter, Inc., 2008) * 2008, Artforum, "The Artists' Artists" December 2008, XLVII, No.4, p99 * Fashionfashion, Artist Book Project, Issues 1-5 (2004–present) * North Drive Press, "K8 Hardy and Ulrike Mueller" Issue 3 (New York: Matt Keegan and Sara Greenberger Rafferty, 2006) * 2006, Ridykeulous, Issue 1, p. 7 (New York: Nicole Eisenman and A.L. Steiner, 2006) * 2005, Arts & Leisure, Co-Editor (New York: Art in General, 2005) * 2005, Untitled, "Artist Project: K8 Hardy" Autumn 2005, No. 36, pp50–51 (London: ed. Mario Flecha and Olivia Plender) * 2004, Fashionfashion, Issues 1-5 (2004–present)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hardy, K8 Living people Artists from Fort Worth, Texas 1977 births Artists from New York City Queer feminists American performance artists Musicians from Brooklyn Smith College alumni American documentary film directors American women documentary filmmakers American lesbian artists