When Susan Kleckner started going to psychoanalysis in 1996, she was already a successful artist and filmmaker, quite accustomed to centering her art around issues she deeply believed in. She was the first female professor at Pratt Institute and directed what is considered the first documentary film with an all-women crew. As the women’s and LGBT rights movements blossomed in the 60s and 70s, Kleckner’s photography was an exploration of feminism and of queer sexuality. Her documentary work advocated for reproductive rights and for world peace.
But after a lifelong struggle with mental health, multiple hospitalizations, and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Kleckner found herself in psychoanalysis with a professional named Ona Lindquist.
She was itching to bring her camera into these sessions, to transform this highly personal, vulnerable experience into art.
This semester, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery is hosting an exhibition of Susan Kleckner’s photography and art entitled “Raw Material.” The exhibition of the feminist photographer and filmmaker’s work will be on view until April 5. “Raw Material” opened on Friday, Jan. 23. At the opening, curator William Kaizen gave an opening talk describing the curation process and his research into Kleckner’s work. Kleckner’s psychoanalyst, Ona Lindquist, also spoke. She gave a recitation from her film, “A Barter to Be,” which she made in reflection on her relationship with Kleckner, after the artist’s death in 2010.
“Raw Material,” which gets its title from an unfinished manuscript of Kleckner’s, is the first comprehensive collection of Kleckner’s work. The works featured in the exhibition are part of an archive at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which holds Kleckner’s personal documents, photos, films, and other artworks, including sculpture. These archives are the product of record-keeping efforts by friends and family of Kleckner.
Curator William Kaizen, a scholar of the history of new media, has spent almost a decade exploring these archives. As he explained in his opening talk, Kaizen discovered Kleckner’s work through her film, “Another Look at the Miami Convention” about the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Next, Kaizen explained, he was fortunately able to meet and interview Kleckner. At the time, her work was not widely known, beyond a close circle of artists in New York City. Kaizen was fascinated by her work, which was deeply tied to her political and feminist objectives. Kleckner died of cancer two months later.
“Raw Material” was originally intended to be funded by the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, but the opening was delayed first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the university’s abrupt closure in 2024. In his opening talk, Kaizen admitted that the silver lining to this delay is that visitors to “Raw Material” will be seeing Kleckner’s art in the context of the present Trump administration. In Kleckner’s art, the viewer can see themes of chaos and disturbance, with the ultimate goal of her political artworks being eventual peace and justice.
Three of Kleckner’s most influential films were also incorporated into the “Raw Material” exhibition project and were made available for viewing by the Tri-College community. On Jan. 28, Lightbox Film Center, in Philadelphia, had a screening of both “Three Lives” and “Birth Film.”
“Another Look at the Miami Convention” is playing on February 18 in the VCAM screening room, as part of the “Strange Truth” series curated by VCAM Director John Muse.
Since most of Susan Kleckner’s photography is untitled, “Raw Material” breaks the pieces into themed sections, categorizing them sections such as: “Little Secrets,” “Self-Portraits,” “Greenham Commons Peace Encampment,” and “Mental and Physical Health.”
In her installation “Little Secrets,” Kleckner explores mental health from a psychoanalytic perspective, linking it back to childhood traumas. The series is constructed using lab rat cages with little dolls and figurines inside. In one, two older women in stuffy plaid dresses embrace, rolling around on a floral couch. Looking into the cage, the viewer feels the perspective of the voyeur, perhaps a child accidentally stumbling upon this illicit, queer encounter. In another, a family sits around the dinner table while the father doll spanks a toddler.
Many of Kleckner’s portraits openly portray queer bodies, often nude or in bed. In one, Kleckner has scribbled beards and mustaches onto the faces of the figures, writing over their identities humorously, yet still inviting the viewer to think about the ways in which sexual identities are formulated and presented to onlookers.
Later in Kleckner’s life, her art turned toward an inward exploration of her mental health. While in psychoanalysis with Ona Lindquist, Kleckner paid for the sessions with photos and art pieces. Over time, she convinced Lindquist to consent to be photographed during the analysis sessions, an artistic act that pushed at the boundaries of acceptability in a healthcare setting.
In the final room of the “Raw Material” exhibition, visitors can look through Kleckner’s self-portraits from times when she was institutionalized, photography of her analyst, Lindquist, whose face is often obscured in the photos, and later digital art pieces clustered around the themes of mental and physical health.
Untitled self-portrait photograph categorized as “Mental and Physical Health.” (All images courtesy of Susan Kleckner Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.) 
Untitled photograph categorized as “Mental and Physical Health.” (All images courtesy of Susan Kleckner Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.) 
Untitled digital art piece categorized as “Mental and Physical health.” (All images courtesy of Susan Kleckner Papers, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries.)
In her will, Susan Kleckner gave Ona Lindquist her permission to do whatever she thought was best with her art. Five years later, Lindquist wrote “A Barter to Be,” a spoken-word poem telling the story of their relationship, accompanied by visuals of Susan’s images in a 30-minute film. As a result of collaboration between friends and admirers of Kleckner, “Raw Material” stands as a testament to one woman’s ability to make art both personal and political.
