For Immediate Release March 4, 2021
Media contacts: Jana Brady, Mississippi Museum of Art [email protected], 601-651-3822 Libby Mark or Heather Meltzer, Bow Bridge Communications [email protected], 347-460-5566
EXHIBITION OF ASSEMBLAGES AND SKETCHES BY BETYE SAAR PRESENTED AT MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART
Betye Saar: Call and Response
April 10‒July 11, 2021
Betye Saar, Supreme Quality, Betye Saar, Sketchbook 1998 page, 1/22/98
Jackson, MS…The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) presents Betye Saar: Call and Response, the first exhibition examining the relationship between Saar’s found objects, sketches, and finished works, thereby shedding new light on her distinctive practice. One of the most significant artists working in assemblage and collage today, Los-Angeles based Betye Saar (b. 1926) is best known for incisive works that confront and reclaim racist imagery. Addressing spirituality, gender, family history, and race in her art, Saar ruminates and plays with objects and ideas, making sketches inspired by specific found objects in her possession. These sketches form an essential part of what she considers the mysterious transformation of object into art and provide a window into her creative process.
On view at MMA from April 10 through July 11, 2021, the exhibition features a selection of sketches and approximately 18 corresponding assemblages and collages, alongside approximately a dozen of her travel sketchbooks. Selections cover a broad span of her career, from the 1970s through a sculptural installation made specifically for this touring exhibition. The exhibition marks the first time Saar has shared her sketchbooks with the public.
The daughter of a seamstress and herself a printmaker by training, Saar brings to her work a remarkable sensitivity to materials. Emerging in the 1960s as part of a wave of artists, many of them African American, who embraced the medium of assemblage, Saar combines items typically found at flea markets and secondhand stores to create conceptually and physically elaborate works.
Her process is both intuitive and formally rigorous, and the sketchbooks show how she puts the pieces together on paper, trying out titles, or calling on a memory to guide her. An avid traveler, Saar has kept elaborate travel sketchbooks as well, containing watercolors and collages, many with motifs and symbols that recur throughout her work, including religious icons she discovered in Mexico and Brazil.
MMA’s Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Museum’s Center for Art and Public Exchange, Ryan N. Dennis (she/her) said, “A hallmark of Betye Saar’s practice is storytelling and revealing new, sometimes neglected, narratives through an artist’s lens. She imbues her dynamic compositions with emotional depth and historical commentary. Her personal life, Betye Saar, Sketchbook 1970-72 ancestry, artistic explorations, and interest in spirituality are among the inspirations behind her reinterpretation of objects and their meanings. We are thrilled to present her exquisite sketches alongside her finished works, giving visitors the opportunity to encounter the dialogue between them and witness the transformation—from ideas, memories, and fragments into cohesive wholes.”
Throughout her work, Saar speaks to issues of race and women’s labor. In A Call to Arms (1997), a washboard evokes both female and slave labor, though it is framed by guns, customarily associated with men. Lettered on the corrugated surface are words from Langston Hughes’s poem “The Negro,” originally published in 1922. Saar began collecting washboards in the mid-1990s, inspired by recollections of one her grandmother used on her back porch.
By recycling derogatory images of how Black people were traditionally depicted, she remakes the narrative. In the installation I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break (1998), the image on an ironing board—itself a traditional symbol of female labor—is borrowed from the Brookes diagram, a well-known 18th-century print showing how scores of Africans were packed into slave ships to cross the Atlantic. Saar enlarged and then transferred the diagram to the top of the ironing board, subsequently superimposing on it an image of a Black woman ironing, dressed in stereotypical Mammy attire. A flatiron is chained to the ironing board and a sheet embroidered with KKK hangs on a clothesline. The connection between the Middle Passage and the ongoing impact of slavery is made concrete. The work also refers to the branding of enslaved people and being chained in transit or as punishment.
Saar’s critique of Black caricatures extends to male figures and the current crisis of mass incarceration. In The Edge of Ethics and Serving Time (both 2010), she places Black male and
Betye Saar, The Edge of Ethics, female figures inside birdcages to symbolize captivity, thereby 2010 conveying the plight of those who suffered through slavery and continue to suffer through systemic discrimination.
Saar’s engagement with music and literature is evident throughout the presentation. The final work in the exhibition, Woke Up This Morning, the Blues was in My Bed (2019), is a new sculpture accompanied by sketches dating back to 2001. Cobalt blue bottles rest on a metal cot
2 over coal. The composition evokes the traditional bottle tree used by the Kongo civilization in Africa to ward off evil spirts. The burning coal is representative of pain’s ability to purify and cleanse. A sketch for this work connects the sculpture to an old blues song with the words, “woke up this mornin’, the blues was on my mind.”
Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the presentation of Betye Saar: Call and Response in Jackson, Mississippi is supported by Art Bridges.
Press photos for Betye Saar: Call and Response are at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2z0c1duofycfq8u/AADmkaBeItLuYPoRngJA79dva?dl=0
For more information about the exhibition and public programs, visit msmuseumart.org.
About Betye Saar One of the most important artists of her generation, Betye Saar (b.1926) has played a seminal role in the development of assemblage art. Since the 1960s, her work has reflected on African American identity, spirituality, gender, and the connectedness between different cultures. Saar received her BA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949, with graduate studies at California State University, Long Beach; the University of Southern California; and California State University, Northridge. She has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees by California College of Arts and Crafts, California Institute of the Arts, Cornish College of the Arts, Massachusetts College of Art, Otis College of Art and Design, and San Francisco Art Institute. Saar's work is included in the permanent collections of more than 80 museums, including Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Publication Betye Saar: Call and Response Co-published by LACMA and Delmonico Books · Prestel Essay by Carol S. Eliel, Senior Curator of Modern Art, LACMA Hardcover, 96 pages, 70 color illustrations Price $35 and available in The Museum Store This publication received the 2020 Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC).
Organization and Support This exhibition is organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition is curated by Carol S. Eliel, LACMA's Senior Curator of Modern Art
The coordinating curator at the Mississippi Museum of Art is Ryan Dennis (she/her), Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Museum’s Center for Art & Public Exchange.
The presentation of Betye Saar: Call and Response in Jackson, Mississippi is supported by Art Bridges.
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Visitor Information Opening Hours: Thursday – Saturday: 10 AM – 5 PM Sunday: noon – 5 PM 3
General Admission: $15/Person $13/Seniors and groups of 10+ $10/College students with school ID Free for Museum Members Free for children ages 5 and under Free for K-12 students on Thursdays thanks to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi
COVID-19 Guidelines: COVID safety precautions include requiring all visitors to wear masks and observe social distancing guidelines. Masks are available on site. All public spaces have been sanitized, and thorough cleaning continues every day. Staff are on site to ensure that social distancing guidelines are maintained. Please visit the Museum’s website for more information.
About the Mississippi Museum of Art Established in 1911, the Mississippi Museum of Art is dedicated to connecting Mississippi to the world and the power of art to the power of community. The Museum’s permanent collection includes paintings, photography, multimedia works, and sculpture by Mississippi, American, and international artists. The largest art museum in the state, the Mississippi Museum of Art offers a vibrant roster of exhibitions, public programs, artistic and community partnerships, educational initiatives, and opportunities for exchange year-round. Programming is developed inclusively with community involvement to ensure a diversity of voices and perspectives are represented. Located at 380 South Lamar Street in downtown Jackson, the Museum is committed to honesty, equity, and inclusion. The Mississippi Museum of Art and its programs are sponsored in part by the City of Jackson and Visit Jackson. Support is also provided in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. For more information, visit msmuseumart.org.
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Image captions Page 1 Betye Saar (American, b. 1926), Supreme Quality, 1998. mixed media on vintage washboard, metal washtub, fabric, and wood stand. 41 ¾ x 22 ¼ x 11 7/8 in. The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Mortimer and Sara Hays Acquisition Fund. EX.8646.16
Betye Saar (American, b. 1926), Sketchbook page, 1/22/98. marker on paper. 6 x 3 ¼ in. Collection of Betye Saar, courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA. EX.8646.13
Page 2 Betye Saar (American, b. 1926), Sketchbook 1970-72. acrylic, ink and watercolor on paper. 6 ¼ x 4 in. Collection of Betye Saar, courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA. EX.8646.2
Betye Saar (American, b. 1926), The Edge of Ethics, 2010. mixed media assemblage. 410 ½ x 9 ¼ x 5 ½ in. Collection of Betye Saar, courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA EX.8646.30
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