Barbara Hammer is a pioneering Bay Area feminist and Lesbian Experimental filmmaker. Hammer has made dozens of films on women's issues gender roles, lesbian relationships and aging. Hammer has a multiple praxis for the past 40 years with resonating impact on young artists today. Her work was included in the 1985, 1989, and 1993 Whitney Biennials and is included in the permanent collections of the Australian Center for the Moving Image, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Centre Georges Pompidou, and elsewhere.

She is the author of Hammer! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life (Feminist Press 2009). She has had major retrospectives at The Museum of Modern Art (2010), the Tate Modern (2012), Jeau de Paume (2012), Kunsthall Oslo (2013), Toronto International Film Festival (2013), Muzeum Sztuki, Krakow; Ujazdowski, Warsaw, Museum Sztuki MS2, Lodz (2016), The Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (2017-18). The Austrian Film Museum will present her work for a retrospective in spring, 2018. Hammer is represented by KOW Gallery (Berlin) and Company Gallery (New York City). She lives and works in New York City.