Museums, Curators, and Artists Say Goodbye to Betye Saar: ‘Thank You for the Dance’
Assemblage artist Betye Saar died on July 26, four days before her 100th birthday; she was born in Los Angeles in 1926 and worked for six decades using found objects to address race, politics, and spirituality. Saar is widely known for her 1972 work “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima,” which reimagines the stereotyped figure as a militant, and institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), the Getty Museum, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, and the Studio Museum in Harlem issued tributes. MOCA highlighted Saar’s involvement in its inaugural exhibition “The First Show,” a 1984 presentation of 48 works at the Temporary Contemporary site, and a later commission tied to 10 performances of Ellen Sebastian’s “Sanctified.” The Hammer Museum noted that activist Angela Davis cited “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” as a beginning point for the Black Women’s movement, and LACMA referenced Saar’s 1998 sculptural tableau “I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break,” currently on view in its David Geffen Galleries. The Studio Museum in Harlem emphasized Saar’s long relationship with the institution and her impact on ideas of domesticity and Black feminism, and it extended condolences to her daughters Lezley Saar, Alison Saar, and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh.
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This story was covered in Bias Warnings, Billion-Dollar Openings, and Museum Heists