Betye Saar
By Sam Falb
A swirl of power brokers, patrons, and provocateurs collided on the dance floor at MoMA last night.
On Tuesday night in Midtown, the Museum of Modern Art’s annual Party in the Garden returned in full force, honoring artists Betye Saar and Martin Puryear alongside philanthropist Jo Carole Lauder. Held across the museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, the benefit raised support for the institution’s operations, exhibitions, collection stewardship, and learning and engagement initiatives.
The Scene: Art-world luminaries, collectors, patrons, and cultural leaders filled the museum’s galleries for a festive dinner, before spilling into the garden for the highly anticipated after-hours affair. Against a backdrop of towering sculptures, lush florals, and well-coiffed guests, conversations flowed between generations of artists and the supporters who have helped shape MoMA’s legacy.
The Locale: The festivities unfolded across MoMA’s campus, with dinner taking place inside the museum’s vaunted halls, and the after-party extending into the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden—resplendent with flashing light displays, greenery, and a whimsical cotton-candy stand tucked near the bar.
The Crowd: Guests included museum leadership Christophe Cherix, Sarah Arison, and Marie-Josée Kravis; artists Derrick Adams, Firelei Báez, KAWS, Anna Deavere Smith, Rashid Johnson, Louise Lawler, An-My Lê, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Odili Donald Odita, Sable Elyse Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and Leo Villareal; patrons Michael Bloomberg, Sid Bass, Paula Crown, Cat Gund, David Rockefeller Jr., Susan Rockefeller, and Lizzie Tisch; arts leaders Connie Butler, Thelma Golden, Antwaun Sargent, and Jack Shear; designer Wes Gordon; comedian Chris Rock, and cultural critic Tefi Pessoa.
What You Missed: Following dinner, guests migrated to the museum’s sculpture garden for a lively after-party anchored by back-to-back DJ sets from Tinashe and Rebecca Black—a rare use of the space’s lush setting after dark.
The iconic artist on infusing her work with the mystical and recreating her mural LA Energy from 1983. Frieze talks to Los Angeles-born artist Betye Saar (b. 1926), presenting with Roberts Projects at Frieze Los Angeles. As one of the artists who ushered in the development of Assemblage art, her practice reflects on African American identity, spirituality and the connectedness between different cultures. Her symbolically rich body of work has evolved over time to demonstrate the environmental, cultural, political, racial, technological, economic, and historical context in which it exists.
Betye Saar: Black Doll Blues brings together a selection of new watercolor works on paper, portraits of Saar’s personal collection of Black dolls. Referencing the underrepresented history of Black dolls as seen through Saar’s artistic lens, the works on view distill several intersecting themes, imagery, and objects in Saar’s oeuvre, highlighting her prominent usage and reinvention of derogatory imagery.
"Mojo Rising" features Betye Saar’s ongoing mojo focus, and local artists who are inspired by these ideas to create cultural narratives and engaging objects that challenge normalizing tropes, and reveal practices influenced by Saar’s ceaseless commitment to making, sharing, teaching and encouraging artists in Los Angeles and beyond.
In recent months 93-year-old artist Betye Saar has been cast in the spotlight, with glowing reviews for major shows at New York City's Museum of Modern Art and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Saar's primary art form is assemblage – sculptures made from found items that she pieces together, often addressing spirituality and black oppression – that turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Correspondent Serna Altschul reports.
After nearly a decade of focused work in printmaking, artist Betye Saar created her autobiographical assemblage "Black Girl’s Window" in 1969. This exhibition explores the relation between her experimental print practice and the new artistic language debuted in that famous work, tracing themes of family, history, and mysticism, which have been at the core of Saar’s work from its earliest days. Celebrating the recent acquisition of 42 rare, early works on paper, this is the first dedicated examination of Saar’s work as printmaker. "Betye Saar: The Legends of Black Girl's Window" is on view at The Museum of Modern Art through January 4, 2020
