Ruth Asawa

Description

Known for her extensive body of intricate and dynamic wire sculptures, American sculptor, educator, and arts activist Ruth Asawa challenged conventional notions of material and form through her emphasis on lightness and transparency. Asawa began her now iconic looped-wire works in the late 1940s while still a student at Black Mountain College. Their unique structure was inspired by a 1947 trip to Mexico, during which local craftsmen taught her how to create baskets out of wire. While seemingly unrelated to the lessons of color and composition taught in Josef Albers's legendary Basic Design course, these works, as she explained, are firmly grounded in his teachings in their use of unexpected materials and their elision of figure and ground. Presenting an important and timely overview of the artist's work, this monograph brings together a broad selection of her sculptures, works on paper, and more. Together the body of work demonstrates the centrality of Asawa's innovative practice to the art-historical legacy of the twentieth century. In addition to an incredible group of photographs of the artist and her work by Imogen Cunningham, a selection of rare archival materials will illustrate a chronology of the artist's life and work. Featuring an extensive text by Tiffany Bell which explores the artist's influences, history, and, most importantly, the work itself, as well as a significant essay by Robert Storr discussing Asawa's work in relation to mid-twentieth century art history, culture, and scientific theory.

Robert Storr is among the most esteemed curators and critical writers on art today. He was appointed professor of painting/printmaking and dean of the Yale School of Art in 2006 and is also Consulting Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

"[Asawa's] embrace of transparency's ambiguities, no matter how subtle they might be, allows for no easy identification or quick categorization. It just requires close attention."--Anne Reynolds "Frieze" "A bewitching installation of her abstract sculptures... she re-invents wire as a vehicle for release and liberation."--Deborah Solomon "WNYC" "The addition of Asawa to art's overwhelmingly white-male hit parade comes at a critical time in our country, as the policies of the current Administration challenge the undeniable fact that the United States is a nation of immigrants."--Andrea K. Scott "The New Yorker" "This exquisite book is appropriate to its subject and an excellent introduction to an artist only belatedly becoming known to a larger art world."--Andrea Kirsh "Artblog" [Asawa's sculptures] "have an aura of casual prowess."--Sebastian Smee "The Washington Post" Ruth Asawa is "an opportunity to reassess both the expansiveness and consistency of her vision."--Zach Hatfield "The New York Review of Books"