AT THE ICA: What was Eva Hesse thinking?

Forty years after Eva Hesse's death, an exhibition of some of her last sculptures at the Institute of Contemporary Art is prompting varied reactions, ranging from appreciation to befuddlement.

The recently opened "Eva Hesse Studiowork" features about 50 seemingly unfinished pieces found in her New York studio at her death in 1970 at 34 from a brain tumor that cut short a meteoric career.

Born in Germany in 1936, Hesse achieved considerable fame in her 10-year career for relief sculptures shaped from unusual materials that critics said infused the minimalist art of her counterparts with playfulness and sensuality.

Randi Hopkins, who organized the exhibit in the adjoining gallery, described Hesse as "very, very influential" and "wonderfully experimental" at a time of prevailing minimalism in sculpture.

She said Hesse had been "a pivotal artist" as the Minimalist art movement evolved beyond the stripping down of art to its most fundamental features.

"Eva was very playful but smart with her material. She bent the boundaries between representational and abstract art. She wanted to bring more emotion to the sculpture that was being made then," said Hopkins, who served three years as associate curator at the ICA before leaving the museum last month.

Making its only East Coast stop at the ICA, "Studiowork" was curated by Brioy Fer and the director of Hesse's estate, Barry Rose, and organized by the Fruitmarket Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, in collaboration with several institutions.

Comprising a goulash of materials including papier mache, wire, metal, cords, latex and cheesecloth, the objects in "Studiowork" might affect viewers like Rorschach's ink blots -- as invitations to interpret ambiguous signs.

With a few exceptions, most of the unnamed pieces could fit in a microwave. Except for the unusual materials, they mostly resemble throwaway scraps found on a tinkerer's workbench.

The exhibit's organizers suggest that rather than being "preparatory" or "unfinished," Hesse's sculptural pieces "capture key moments of experimentation" that challenge "traditional notions of what sculpture is."

The day after "Studiowork" opened, some visitors intuited Hesse's "wit" and "mischief." Others felt lost, particularly those seeing Hesse's work for the first time.

"I can't connect with it," said Karin Brandt, of Paderborn, Germany, visiting Boston with her daughter who studies in New York. "I thought we might have something in common. But I don't feel it."

Richard Carter, a former college president and education consultant from Fitzroy North, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, described the pieces as "detritus" that left him uncertain how to respond.

"We come to something like this to be challenged and entertained. I'm not so sure it succeeds on either point," he said.

Noting Hesse died when she was only 34, Carter's wife Vi said she looked at works in the show "as a personal expression of (Hesse's) experience."

However, a time line of Hesse's life on the gallery wall left out some key incidents of a life packed with trauma.

Hesse's Jewish parents fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, emigrating to England and finally the U.S. in 1939. After her parents separated in 1944, her mother, who suffered from manic-depression, committed suicide in 1946 when Hesse was 12.

After studying art at several institutions and earning degrees from Cooper Union and Yale University, Hesse married sculptor Tom Doyle in 1961 and separated from him in 1966, the same year her father died.

Hesse died in May 1970 after her third operation for a brain tumor, earning the sobriquet "the James Dean of art."

Los Angeles-based sculptor India Lawrence said she'd come to see Hesse's art firsthand because she'd deeply influenced her own work.

"The most fascinating part to me is the way (Hesse) played with her materials," said the Bard College graduate who was visiting with her boyfriend and his mother.

Lawrence suggested visitors don't seek a "specific narrative" in the works in the show but "look how closely (Hesse) worked the materials with her hands."

"There's such a playfulness to these pieces. It's too bad they're behind glass. I'd like to touch them and see how they feel," she said.

Her companion, Morgan Canvan, a sculptor from New York, suggested that rather than trying to interpret Hesse's pieces, visitors think "more about having an encounter with them."

"Some grab me. Some don't. I don't think you have to appreciate every single one. It's more about seeing Hesse's sense of play with materials like paper or cheesecloth," he said.

Stressing she hadn't worked on the show but was familiar with Hesse's art, Hopkins cautioned against assigning meaning to the works in the show.

"Clearly these works (on display) had a lot of meaning for Eva but nobody can really say what that was," she said. "Rather than look for a right answer, people might think what it took Eva to make this pieces and ask what she was thinking about then."

THE ESSENTIALS:

WHAT: Eva Hesse Studiowork

WHEN: Through Oct. 10

WHERE: Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave., Boston

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday

ADMISSION: $15 adults; $13 seniors; $10 students; and free for children under 17

INFO: 617-478-3100, www.icaboston.org