In Betye Saar’s assemblages, every object means something. Birdcages stand for entrapment and
In Betye Saar’s assemblages, every object means something. Birdcages stand for entrapment and human attempts to dominate nature. Boxing gloves signal a violent refusal of limitation. Washboards and irons symbolize domestic labor. Clocks and globes invoke man-made systems of ordering the world. In this uncanny sculpture, titled The Weight of Whiteness, Saar has nestled an eroded doll head into a bed of cotton, which in turn sits atop a cluster of white chainlinks on an old scale. The entire assemblage is white, with notable exceptions in the patches of rust and the piercing blue eyes of the face. The work manifests a vision of the literal, physical toll whiteness takes on society and the psyche—a critique leveraged exclusively through the materials themselves. Such is Saar’s brilliance that her juxtapositions and subtle transformations of found objects can turn waste or, worse, offense into transcendent visions of her Los Angeles milieu and its long history of Black resistance, resilience, creativity, and self-determination. That she made this work only three years ago, at the age of 87, is more than enough proof that Saar has not sacrificed one ounce of her obsessive collecting and singular aesthetic. We should celebrate her while we still can.Betye Saar, The Weight of Whiteness, 2014 -- source link
#betye saar