Betye Saar

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Betye Saar visiting a gallery, 2016

Betye Irene Saar (born July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American artist best known for her work with the technique of assemblage . In the USA, Saar is a legend in the world of contemporary art . She is a visual narrator and accomplished graphic designer . In the 1970s she was one of the representatives of the Black Arts Movement . From the beginning, she addressed the negative portrayals of Afro-Americans and the widespread racist attitude towards black people in the USA .

life and work

Betye Irene Brown was born and raised in Los Angeles as the daughter of Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson. After the death of her father in 1931, she and her mother, brother and sister first moved to live with their father's parents in the Watts district and later to Pasadena , California. Even in her youth, Saar liked to collect unusual objects, some of which she also repaired. She began her art studies with the two-year program at Pasadena City College and then moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) thanks to a scholarship . She completed her first degree in 1947 with a Bachelor of Arts in design . She then enrolled in courses at California State University, Long Beach , University of Southern California , California State University, Northridge , and American Film Institute .

From 1952 to 1970 she was married to the ceramic artist Richard Saar and had three daughters with him: the artist Lezley Saar (born 1953), the artist Alison Saar (born 1956) and the publicist Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh (born 1961).

Professional development

Originally she wanted a career as an art teacher, but decided to take a course in printmaking . For them, this art movement meant the transition from the applied art forms to the visual arts .

In 1967 she found new inspiration by visiting an exhibition by the sculptor Joseph Cornell , who created assemblages from found objects ( objet trouvé ). Another important influence on her artistic development was Simon Rodia 's Watts Towers , the construction of which she saw during her childhood. She later shared how the materials Simon Roda used - broken china , sea ​​shells , rusted tools and even corn on the cob - embedded in the concrete spiers - had a magical allure on her.

She began assembling boxes and window frames herself with found objects that had a connection to the cultures of her ancestors: African American , Irish , and Native Americans .

Saar was at times raised by her great-aunt Hattie and regarded her as a great role model. Therefore she dedicated the work Record For Hattie , created in 1975, to her . It consists of mixed media put together in an antique jewelry box . Hereby she pays homage to the body of a woman without overlaying it with racist characteristics , eroticism or sexual fetishism . Nevertheless, her work cannot be classified in the style of primitivism . Rather, she combines motifs of black power , spirituality , mysticism , and feminism , such as in her Black Girl's Window from 1969.

Saar has been collecting images of Aunt Jemima , Uncle Tom , Little Black Sambo and other stereotypical depictions of Afro-American folk figures in everyday life and advertising in the so-called Jim Crow years of the USA since the 1960s . In her assemblages she used these images to express political and social protest . The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is one of the most notable works of this period. She once said about the motivation for this work, which undermines the stereotypical image of the black household help - the so-called Mammy :

“It's like they got rid of slavery, but kept black people in their kitchens as“ Mammy ”souvenirs. I had an aunt Jemima and I wanted to put a rifle and a grenade under her skirt. I wanted to give her more power. I wanted to make her a warrior. I wanted people to see that black people would not be enslaved by this. ( It's like they abolished slavery but they kept black people in the kitchen as Mammy jars. I had this Aunt Jemima, and I wanted to put a rifle and a grenade under her skirts. I wanted to empower her. I wanted to make her a warrior. I wanted people to know that black people wouldn't be enslaved by that. ) "

In the late 1960s, Saar became involved in the civil rights movement . In 1970 she met other African American artists at Gallery 32 , which was run by artist and art dealer Suzanne Jackson . This encounter led to a joint exhibition called Sapphire (You've Come a Long Way, Baby) .

In the 1980s, Saar taught at UCLA and the Otis Art Institute . During this time she deals in her works with the connections between two different systems of knowledge: technology , such as in the computer chip , and spirituality , represented by objects from Voodoo , among other things .

In the late 1990s, Saar expressed strong public criticism of the works of artist Kara Walker, born in 1969, for their portrayal of African Americans. Saar and other critics like Howardena Pindell believe that Walker is thereby entrenching racism and racist stereotypes. In a 1999 documentary, it is reported that Saar thought Walker's provocative motives were a form of betrayal of the African-American slave. The age difference between the artists is used as an explanation for their different points of view.

Together with two of her daughters she set in 2006 works in a traveling exhibition called Family Legacies (to German: Familienvermächtnisse ) that has been shown in several places in the US.

Saar has lived and worked in her studio in Laurel Canyon , a residential area in Los Angeles , for many years .

In 2020 Saar, which is still little known in Germany, will receive the 26th Wolfgang Hahn Prize of the Society for Modern Art at the Museum Ludwig for her life's work and her influence on art in the USA . Christophe Cherix, a judge, said of Betye Saar:

“Betye Saar's work occupies a key position in American art. Her assemblages from the 1960s and early 1970s link issues of ethnicity, politics and supernatural belief systems with her personal history. Saar, who grew up in a segregated society, has held on to her belief over the years that art can overcome our darkest moments and deepest fears. "

A date for the ceremony has not yet been set due to the COVID-19 pandemic .

Solo exhibition (selection)

  • 2019 LACMA , Los Angeles, CA
  • 2019 Museum of Modern Art , New York, NY
  • 2019 New York Historical Society, New York, NY
  • 2017 Craft and Folk Art Museum (now Craft Contemporary), Los Angeles
  • 2016 Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California
  • 2016 Fondazione Prada , Milan Italy
  • 2016 Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
  • 2014 Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California
  • 2006 Crocker Art Museum , Sacramento, California
  • 2005 University of Michigan Museum of Art , Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • 2002 Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Princeton, NJ
  • 2000 Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York City, New York.
  • 1999 University of New Mexico Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado and the Detroit Institute of Arts , Detroit, Michigan.
  • 1998 Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, New York and Jan Baum Gallery, Los Angeles, California and California African-American Museum , Los Angeles, California.
  • 1997 Tacoma Art Museum , Tacoma, Washington.
  • 1996 Des Moines Art Center , Des Moines, Iowa and The Palmer Museum of Art , Penn State College, Pennsylvania and de Saisset Museum , Santa Clara, California and Joslyn Art Museum , Omaha, Nebraska.
  • 1994 Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, California.
  • 1993 Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California.
  • 1992 The Ritual Journey. Joseloff Gallery, University of Hartford , Connecticut.
  • 1991 Objects Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
  • 1990 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles , California.
  • 1989 City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand and Art space, Auckland, New Zealand
  • 1988 Taichung Museum of Art, Taichung, Taiwan.
  • 1987 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • 1984 California, Los Angeles, California and Georgia State University Art Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia.
  • 1983 Women's Art Movement, Adelaide, Australia and Canberra School of Art, Canberra Connecticut, Australia.
  • 1982 Quay Gallery, San Francisco, California.
  • 1981 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
  • 1980 Studio Museum in Harlem , New York, New York.
  • 1979 Baum-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
  • 1977 Baun-Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , San Francisco, California.
  • 1976 Wadsworth Atheneum , Hartford, Connecticut and Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, New York.
  • 1975 Whitney Museum of American Art , New York, New York.
  • 1973 California State University , Los Angeles, California.

Awards and honorary doctorates

Public collections

literature

  • Van Proyen, M .: A Conversation with Betye and Alison Saar. Interview. in Artweek, Vol. 22 (August 15, 1991) pp. 3ff
  • Etra, J .: Family Ties. in: ARTnews, Vol. 90 (May 1991), pp. 128-33.
  • Willette, JSM: Stitching Lives: Fabric in the Art of Betye Saar. in: Fiberarts, Vol. 23 (March / April 1997), pp. 44-81
  • Betye Saar, Arlene Raven: Betye Saar: workers + warriors: the return of Aunt Jemima. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York 1998.
  • Betye Saar in: Women artists of color: a bio-critical sourcebook to 20th century artists in the Americas. Edited by Phoebe Farris. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1999. pp. 333-339. ISBN 9780313303746
  • Jane Carpenter: Against the flow: Betye Saar and assemblage in the age of activism, 1965-74. in: Bulletin - Museums of Art and Archeology , The University of Michigan, No. 13, 2000.
  • Jane H Carpenter: Betye Saar (The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Vol. II). Pomegranate, Petaluna, CA 2003, ISBN 0-7649-2349-8
  • Jessica Dallow: Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood. in: Feminist Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring, 2004), pp. 74-113 JSTOR: 3178559
  • Lisa E. Farrington: Creating their own image: the history of African-American women artists. Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 162-167, ISBN 978-0195167214
  • Paysour, F: "Wonders of the House of Saar." in: International Review of African American Art. Vol. 20, No. 3, 2005, pp. 51-53
  • James Christen Steward (ed.): Betye Saar: extending the frozen moment. University of Michigan Museum of Art; University of California Press, Ann Arbor; Berkeley, 2005, ISBN 978-0520246621 .
  • Jessica Dallow et al. a. (ed.): Family legacies: the art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill 2005. ISBN 9780295985640
  • Betye Saar u. a .: Betye Saar: Migrations, Transformations: September 8-October 28, 2006. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York 2006, ISBN 978-1930416376 .
  • Susan M. Weinert: Politics, aesthetics and gender relations in African-American art: the work of Elizabeth Catlett and Betye Saar (1940–2005). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009. ISBN 9783826036293
  • Jones, Kellie, et al. a .: Now dig this! : art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 2011, ISBN 9783791351360 .
  • George Lipsitz: Serving Time: Betye Saar's Cage, the Criminalization of Poverty, and the Healing Power of Art in Black California, in: Ingrid Banks u. a. (ed.). ' Black California Dreamin'. The Crises of California's Africa-American Communities. University of California, Santa Barbara 2012, pp. 153-160, ISBN 0-9765036-6-2
  • Ellen Y. Tani: Keeping Time in the Hands of Betye Saar in: American Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4, December 2016, pp. 1081–1109. [1]
  • Kellie Jones: South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Duke University Press, Durham 2017, ISBN 9780822374169 .

Web links

Commons : Betye Saar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tanya A. Christian: 10 Things We're Talking About: Black Artists Matter in: Essence Volume 49, No. 7, December 2018, p. 37.
  2. ^ A b c d Carolina A. Miranda: For Betye Saar, there's no dwelling on the past ". In: Los Angeles Times . April 29, 2016, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Betye Saar | American artist and educator. In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Betye Saar. In: Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  5. ^ A b Ellen Y. Tani: Keeping Time in the Hands of Betye Saar: Betye Saar . In: American Quarterly . tape 68 , no. 4 , 2016, ISSN  1080-6490 , p. 1081–1109 , doi : 10.1353 / aq.2016.0082 (English).
  6. ^ A b Marlo Mainetti: Betye Saar: uneasy dancer . Fondazione Prada, Milan 2016, ISBN 978-88-87029-67-3 .
  7. ↑ Jane H. Carpenter: Betye Saar . Pomegranate Communications, San Francisco 2003, ISBN 978-0-7649-2349-4 .
  8. ↑ Richard Saar. In: saarceramics.org. March 7, 2008, accessed April 16, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Scarlet Cheng: Mother, daughters, memories. In: Los Angeles Times. May 30, 2006, accessed April 16, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Alison Saar. In: Artcyclopedia. Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  11. ^ Art Now and Then: Betye Saar. September 1, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  12. ^ The Ordinary Becomes Mystical: A Conversation with Betye Saar. The Getty Iris, January 4, 2012, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  13. ^ A b Courtney J. Martin: Betye Saar | Now Dig This! digital archive | Hammer Museum. In: Hammer Museum. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Betye Saar, Whitfield Lovell u. a .: Betye Saar: migrations / transformations: September 8-October 28, 2006. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York 2006, ISBN 978-1-930416-37-6 .
  15. ↑ Celeste-Marie Bernier: African American visual arts: from slavery to the present . University of North Carolina Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8078-3256-1 .
  16. ^ Vas Prabhu: Instructional Resources: Contemporary Art: Familiar Objects in New Contexts . In: Art Education . tape 43 , no. 4 , 1990, pp. 25-32 , doi : 10.2307 / 3193213 , JSTOR : 3193213 (English).
  17. ↑ Betye Saar - Record for Hattie (1975) - Artsy. In: www.artsy.net. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Jessica Dallow: Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood . In: Feminist Studies . tape 30 , no. 1 , 2004, p. 75-113 , JSTOR : 3178559 .
  19. ^ Renee Montagne: Life Is a Collage for Artist Betye Saar. In: NPR.org. December 28, 2006, accessed February 17, 2018 .
  20. ^ Rebecca S. Cohen: A Life in Fragments: The Eloquence of Betye Saar's Art Assemblages. In: The Austin Chronicle. July 26, 1996, accessed April 16, 2020 .
  21. ↑ I'll Make Me a World. In: IMDb. Retrieved April 15, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Farai Chideya: Kara Walker Rattles Art World Again. In: npr. March 7, 2008, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  23. ^ Arlene R. Keizer: Gone Astray in the Flesh: Kara Walker, Black Women Writers, and African American Postmemory . In: PMLA . tape 123 , no. 5 , 2008, p. 1649–1672 , doi : 10.1632 / pmla.2008.123.5.1649 , JSTOR : 25501968 .
  24. ^ Anne Millet-Gallant: Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar. In: caareviews.org. May 17, 2006, accessed April 16, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Shelley Leopold: Betye Saar: Reflecting American Culture Through Assemblage Art. In: KCET. November 13, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  26. ^ Current date of "Museum Ludwig". Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  27. ↑ a b Program 2020. Accessed on April 16, 2020 .
  28. ↑ Betye Saar: call and response. Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  29. ^ MacDowell Medalists. Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Saar, Betye
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saar, Betye Irene (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California