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By Ariana Marsh

One of the most celebrated artists in the medium of assemblage, Betye Saar was born in Los Angeles, where she studied in design. In 1967, she visited an exhibition by found objects sculptor Joseph Cornell, which radically impacted her artistic trajectory. She began lining assemblage boxes with her own prints and drawings, and filling them with found objects, creating pieces that addressed race and current events.

Portraits Revealed features group and individual portraits from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s extensive collection. The essence of portraiture is that it depicts or alludes to a person or people. Over centuries, the artists in this gallery have told stories, fantasized, and revealed invisible emotions and beliefs. Portraits can be meditations on life and existence, opulent displays of status, or both. This exhibition presses on what counts as a portrait by including a few still-life paintings that use objects to suggest an unseen person or situation.

with abundance we meet is a new site specific installation by artist Suchitra Mattai at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Presented in the rotunda of the museum, it features large, fruit-like sculptures—called phala (Hindi for "fruit")—made from braided and woven vintage saris. Suspended from the ceiling, the phala evoke associations with fertility, wombs, and ancestral spirits, and serve as a reflection on the artist’s South Asian heritage. 

Betye Saar has been honored as a recipient of the Art Basel Award Medal. The Art Basel Awards are the first global honors dedicated to recognizing and advancing excellence across the contemporary art world — celebrating visionaries spanning the industry whose work is shaping the next generation of cutting-edge artistry. Path-breaking artists, cross-disciplinary creators in fashion, design, music, and performance; curators; institutions; patrons and foundations; writers and journalists; and the specialists behind the scenes, from studio managers to fabricators, are honored in Art Basel’s debut year of its landmark annual award cycle.