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Betye Saar’s Blend is the final segment of a two-part survey spanning both gallery spaces. An exhibition of mixed mediaworks from1987-2016, Blend continues Saar’s exploration of color as a means to engage with a multiplicity of techniques, images, and ideas. Whereas the first installment, entitled Black White, introduced how specific ideas are expressed through the descriptive qualities of black and white, Blend is less of an application than integration. If we are to interpret Black White as an attitude, characterized not by its fidelity to an organizing principle but rather by its sharpness of delivery, then Blend is an exhale out. The release of tension, heaviness. The works on view are defined by several distinct qualities: they are ambiguous, arbitrary, and abstract. Seen together, the predominate coloris a subdued, nonspecific grey. Even works incorporating vivid neonand flashes of blue remain grounded to grey platforms and plinths. What is seen as a formulated shade is in fact its essence: what it implies, or suggests. It is as much a sensibility, mood, texture or weight than a color.

If we are to interpret Black White as an attitude, characterized not by its fidelity to an organizing principle but rather by its sharpness of delivery, then Blend is an exhale out. The release of tension, heaviness. The works on view are defined by several distinct qualities: they are ambiguous, arbitrary, and abstract. Seen together, the predominate color is a subdued, nonspecific grey. Even works incorporating vivid neon and flashes of blue remain grounded to grey platforms and plinths. What is seen as a formulated shade is in fact its essence: what it implies, or suggests. It is as much a sensibility, mood, texture or weight than a color.

Grey in itself is an enigmatic color: a color of contradictions; unsettling and expectant; nearly unidentifiable. Unlike white or black, grey doesn’t subscribe to a specific belief system. It is here where Blend takes shape: in the reversal of expectations in terms of color, texture, and proportion. A slow burn.

Saar’s eagerness and curiosity in recontextualizing the familiar as alien, or magic, is none more so apparent than Mojotech (1987), a major work conceived when she was an artist in residence at M.I.T

A meditation on the intersections between tribal and technological magic, personal offerings including charms, amulets, and voodoo symbols share space alongside discarded circuit boards, electronic objects, and other technological debris reconfigured as sacred objects

Saar has long used her work as an organizing force for ritualized exchanges, rendering visible the experiential. It is in this gesture of reaching back that informs how Saar’s integration of collectivistic cultural orientations with individualistic practices collapses the boundaries between the natural and the manufactured, the historical against the present, the distance between black and white. Blend and Black White will remain on view through December 17, 2016.

 

Betye Saar

Redbone & Black: Scouts, 2001
Mixed media collage on paper
17.5 x 25 in (44.5 x 63.5 cm)

Betye Saar

The Dark Past, The Grey Future, 1999
Mixed media collage
22.75 x 27.75 in (57.8 x 70.5 cm)

Betye Saar

Blend, 2002
Mixed media collage on hand made paper
55 x 25.75 x .75 in (139.7 x 65.4 x 1.9 cm)

Betye Saar

Small Betrayals, 1993
Mixed media drawings/collage on paper
25.50 x 29 in (64.8 x 73.7 cm)

Betye Saar

Clues to Feelings, 1993
Mixed media drawings/collage on paper
21 x 24 in (53.3 x 61.0 cm)

Betye Saar

Searching for a Vision of Truth, 2016
Mixed media assemblage
23 x 10 x 9.5 in (58.4 x 25.4 x 24.1 cm)

Betye Saar

Searching for a Vision of Truth, 2016
Mixed media assemblage
23 x 10 x 9.5 in (58.4 x 25.4 x 24.1 cm)

Betye Saar

Vanity, 2009
Mixed media assemblage
16 x 13.25 x 10.25 in (40.64 x 33.65 x 26.03 cm)

Betye Saar

Illusion of Freedom, 2009
Mixed media collage
8.5 x 18.5 x 11 in (21.6 x 47.0 x 27.9 cm)

Betye Saar

Pause Here - Spirit Chair, 1996
Mixed media assemblage with metal garden chair and neon
31.5 x 24.5 x 20.5 in (80.01 x 62.23 x 52.07 cm)

Betye Saar

Serving Time, 2010
Mixed media assemblage
64 x 17.25 x 9.75 in (162.6 x 43.8 x 24.8 cm)

Betye Saar

Serving Time, 2010
Mixed media assemblage
64 x 17.25 x 9.75 in (162.6 x 43.8 x 24.8 cm)

Betye Saar

Standing in the Shadow of Love, 2000
Mixed media assemblage
18 x 26.25 x 1.50 in (45.7 x 66.7 x 3.8 cm)

Betye Saar

Mojotech, 1987
Mixed media installation
76 x 294 x 16 in (193.0 x 746.8 x 40.6 cm)

Betye Saar

The Destiny of Latitude & Longitude, 2010
Mixed media assemblage
54 x 43 in (137.2 x 109.2 cm)

Betye Saar

The Destiny of Latitude & Longitude, 2010
Mixed media assemblage
54 x 43 in (137.2 x 109.2 cm)

Betye Saar

The Destiny of Latitude & Longitude, 2010
Mixed media assemblage
54 x 43 in (137.2 x 109.2 cm)