1. Betye Saar, Celestial Universe, 1988, Farbe auf Seide, 241,3 x 353,1 cm, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Museumsankauf, Foto: Robert Wedemeyer, Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
Betye, her life(s) and her secret(s)
Betye Saar is still an unknown artist outside of the United States, but her exhibition which was presented in Miami, and later in France and now in Luzern is trying to present the artist with her installations, drawings and objects in which she describes the history of the black identity in the United States.
The work of Betye Saar is deeply linked to her root. As a black and American woman, her work reflects her black identity, the history of racism in the United States and the discrimination of black people in western society.
In her work, she describes her experience with assemblages of objects, while taking inspirations from her travels, ancestry, religion and mysticism. With her inspiration, her work becomes autobiographical, while using the universal language about Black people in the United States and their history from slavery to the ongoing racism of today.
Betye Saar
Betye Saar or Betye Irene Brown was born on July 30, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. While both of her parents Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson attended the University of California, Los Angeles, Betye Saar choose a different academic road to become an artist.
While her father died in 1931 (when she was five years old), all of her family including her mother, brother, and sister moved in with her paternal grandmother, Irene Hannah Maze in another part of Los Angeles. Due to financial problems, they moved in the outskirt of the city in Pasadena and moved in with her maternal great-aunt Hatte Parson Keys and her husband Robert E. Keys.
Due to this many move, Betye Saar started her study at the Pasadena City College, before continuing her art degree at the University of California, Los Angeles thanks to a tuition award from an organization that raised funds to send minority students to universities.
After her study, she received a Bachelor of Design in 1947.
2. Betye Saar, House of Fortune, 1988, Ausstellungsansicht Betye Saar. Serious Moonlight, Kunstmuseum Luzern, 2023, Foto: Marc Latzel, Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California
Early works and inspirations
During her first years as an artist, Betye Saar had to be a social worker during the day to earn enough money to leave and to pursue her passion in art.
After her Bachelor in Design, she started teaching Design. But while trying new mediums she felts in love with printmaking and printmaking techniques, which will later inspire her early works. During those time, her main inspirations came from an exhibition of Joseph Cornell, an artist who created boxes with all sorts of materials. She was also fascinated by Simon Rodia "Watts Towers" due to her use of materials such as broken dishes, sea shells, rusty tools, even corn cobs, etc.
All of those influences can be found in the work of the artist since the 70s and 80s, with assemblages of boats, fabrics, rocks, natural and artificial elements which tell the story of Betye herself, but also of her Black identity and heritage.
In the exhibition in Luzern, the exhibition start with a room dedicated to his early works, made out with different shapes and motifs she will regularly use in her life such as the astrological signs, the stars, the female body, etc. The rest of the exhibition presents works dating from the 70s until one of her most recent work titled "Gliding into Midnight" from 2019.
One of the most striking and poetic work (in my own opinion) is "Brides of Bondage" from 1998, which present a white wedding dress which float like a Ghost onto a white pedestal. On the feet of the bridesmaids, a series of miniatures boats introduce the political and racial aspect in this work.
If you look close enough, the boats are seating on the diagram of Brookes, an engraving showcasing how many slaves you can fit onto a boat. This design, which was published in 1788 by the “Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade” was made to draw attention to the inhumanity of trade.
It also showcases the history of the trade roots between the United Kingdom and the Caribbean islands. Thus, questioning the story of the "main" races in the world and how, at the time, there we're a hierarchy between the rich race (White) and the one who we're uses to add power to the white race, like the slave...
When you read the exhibition catalog and the room guide of the exhibition, you learn so much insight about her art, her process in the atelier and her link to the history of the Black population in the United States and abroad.
What I deeply love about her work is that she's telling her own story, the story of a black woman in the United States, going to University, starting to become a woman and to find her own self by creating art which questions her own identity and community. Thus, it's not a surprise when I've discovered that Betye Saar was part of the Black Arts Movement, an African American art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. That's why her work is so much linked to time, to history, to experiences and emotions, linking her work to her generation but also to the future generation of Black-American.
The exhibition catalog
The exhibition catalog which was published by Del Monico Books was written and edited by Stephanie Seidel, Alex Gartenfeld, Sampada Aranke, Edwidge Danticat and Leah Ollman and was published in 2022.
The design of the catalog was made by Chad Kloepfer.
ISBN: 978-1-636810-36-2
Price: CHF 50
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunstmuseum Luzern
Date: 25.2.2023 – 18.6.2023
Curators: Fanni Fetzer and Stephanie Seidel
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunstmuseum Luzern OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunstmuseum Luzern
Kunstmuseum Luzern
Europaplatz 1
CH-6002 Luzern
Phone: +41 41 226 78 00