BETYE SAAR

As a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the mid-20th century, Betye Saar’s prolific and interdisciplinary practice draws from personal narratives and cultural histories of the Black and African diaspora to make sacred connections between the quotidian and the sublime. 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.

Saar’s early observance of Simon Rodia’s building methodology in constructing the Watts Towers in Los Angeles introduced her to ideas of how found materials can simultaneously embody both the spiritual and physical. This objective—paired with her personal interest in metaphysics, magic and the occult—formed the origin of Saar’s assemblage works. Subsequent series after her iconic work The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) have sought to reveal marginalized or hidden histories, and Saar has long examined the social invisibility of Black Americans in service-oriented jobs, the construction of racial hierarchies based on skin tone within Black communities, and the ways that objects can retain the memories and histories of their owners.