Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is a
Los Angeles, California based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the
African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by
African,
Caribbean, and
Latin Americanfolk art and spirituality.[1] Saar is well known for "transforming found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion."[2]
Throughout her years as a practicing artist Saar has received achievement awards from institutions including the New York City Art Commission as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.
Early life and education
Saar was born in
Los Angeles, California, to a well-known
African-American sculptor and
installation artist,
Betye Saar, and Richard Saar, a ceramicist and art conservator.[3] Saar's mother Betye was involved in the 1970s Black Arts Movement and frequently took Alison and her sisters,
Lezley and Tracye, to museums and art openings during their childhood.[4] They also saw
Outsider Art, such as
Simon Rodia's
Watts Towers in Los Angeles and
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley.[5] Saar's love of nature, intense interest in vernacular folk art and admiration of artists' ability to create beauty through the use of discarded items stemmed from her upbringing and exposure to these experiences and types of art.[6] Alison worked with her father as a conservator for eight years, starting while she was still in high school.[7] This is where she learned to carve, and she notes that it later influenced the materials she would use in her pieces.[7] Dealing with artifacts from different cultures—Chinese frescoes,
Egyptian mummies, and
Pre-Columbian and
African art—taught Alison about properties of various materials, techniques, and
aesthetics.[7]
Saar received a dual degree in art history and studio art from
Scripps College (Claremont, CA) in 1978, having studied with Dr.
Samella Lewis.[8] Her thesis focused on African-American
folk art.[9] She received an MFA from
Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA) in 1981.[10] In addition to their distinguished separate careers Saar and her mother Betye Saar have produced artworks together.[11] From her mother Alison "inherited a fascination with mysticism, found objects, and the spiritual potential of art."[5]
In 1983, Saar had an artist in residence in Harlem at the Studio Museum. She also had another residency in New Mexico in 1985. There she integrated both her urban style with Southwest Native American and Mexican influences. [12]
Work
Saar is skilled in numerous artistic mediums, including metal sculpture, wood, fresco, woodblock print, and works using found objects.[13][14][9] Her sculptures and installations explore themes of African cultural diaspora and spirituality.[13] Her work is often autobiographical and often acknowledges the historical role of the body as a marker of identity, and the body's connection to contemporary identity politics.[1]Snake Man, in the collection of the
Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of how the artist references both African culture and the human body in her work. The artist's multiethnic upbringing, multiracial identity and her studies of Latin American, Caribbean and African art and religion have informed her work.[5][9] Her highly personal, often life-sized sculptures are marked by their emotional candor, and by contrasting materials and messages she imbues her work with a high degree of cultural subtext.[14] Her sculptures represent issues relating to gender and race through both her personal experience and historical context.[15] Saar investigates practices of
Candomblé,
Santería, and
Hoodoo.[16] Believing that objects contain spirits, she transforms familiar found objects to stir human emotions.[17][7]
In a review of the Whitney Biennial, New York Times art critic
Roberta Smith said that Saar's work was among the "few instances where the political and visual join forces with real effectiveness."[18] Of Saar's 2006 exhibition
Coup, critic Rebecca Epstein wrote, “[Saar] demonstrates deft skill with seemingly unforgiving materials (bronze, lead, tar, wood). [She] juggles themes of personal and cultural identity as she fashions various sizes of female bodies (often her own) that are buoyant with story while solid in stance.”[19]
1985: Engelhard Award,
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Artist in Residence, Roswell Museum of Art, Roswell, N.M; Artist, Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
1986: Artist in Residence, November, Washington Project for the Arts
1988: Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
Shepherd, Elizabeth. Secrets, Dialogues,Revelations: The Art of Betye and Alison Saar. Los Angeles, CA: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, 1990.
Wilson, Judith. "Down to the Crossroads: The Art of Alison Saar." In Callaloo 14 no 1 (Winter 1991): 107–123.
Krane, Susan. Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground, Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 1993.
Nooter Roberts, Mary, and Alison Saar. Body Politics:The Female Image in Luba Art and the Sculpture of Alison Saar. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2000.
McGee, Julie L. "Field, Boll, and Monument: Toward an Iconography of Cotton in African American Art." In International Review of African American Art 19 no. 1 (2003): 37–48.
Lewis, Samella S. African American Art and Artists, revised and expanded 3rd ed., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Farrington, Lisa E. "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude." In Woman's Art Journal 24 no. 2 (Autumn 2003–Winter 2004): 15–23.
Dallow, Jessica. "Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood." Feminist Studies 30 no. 1 (2004): 75–113.
Dallow, Jessica. Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar. Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with University of Washington Press, 2005.
Jones, Leisha. "Women and Abjection: Margins of Difference, Bodies of Art." Visual Culture & Gender 2 (2007): 62–71.
Linton, Meg. Alison Saar: STILL .... Los Angeles, CA: Otis College of Art and Design, Ben Maltz Gallery, 2012.
Dallow, Jessica. "Departures and Returns: Figuring the Mother's Body in the Art of Betye and Alison Saar." Reconciling Art and Mothering, edited by Rachel Epp Buller. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012.
^
abDallow, Jessica (2004). "Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood". Feminist Studies. 30 (1): 74–113.
JSTOR3178559.
^Dallow, Jessica (2005). Family legacies : the art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar. Saar, Betye., Saar, Lezley, 1953-, Saar, Alison., Matilsky, Barbara C., Saar-Cavanaugh, Tracye., Ackland Art Museum. (1st ed.). Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London.
ISBN029598564X.
OCLC60664401.
^
abcdKrane, Susan (1993). Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art.
^
abcdShepherd, Elizabeth (1990). The Art of Betye and Alison Saar. Secrets, Dialogues, Revelations. Los Angeles, CA: Wight Art Gallery, University of California. p. 37.
ISBN0-943739-14-4.
^
abSaar, Alison; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; Towson University (January 1, 2007). Duped: prints by Alison Saar : Towson University, March 16, 2007-April 14, 2007 : Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, April 20, 2007-August 5, 2007. DE: Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts.
ISBN978-0-9785927-2-1.
OCLC166424124.
^
abNooter Roberts, Mary (2000). Body politics : the female image in Luba art and the sculpture of Alison Saar. Saar, Alison., University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
ISBN0930741811.
OCLC44518067.
^Farrington, Lisa E. (2003). "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude". Woman's Art Journal. 24 (2): 15–23.
doi:
10.2307/1358782.
JSTOR1358782.
^Saar, Alison (1993). Myth, magic and ritual : figurative work by Alison Saar : [exhibition] February 2-March 7, 1993, Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Center for the Arts. Reading, PA: Freedman Gallery, Albright College.