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The Ritual of American Racism

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Look

The multidisciplinary artist Betye Saar is best known for her assemblages: meticulous arrangements of found objects, religious iconography, and cultural ephemera that, together, interrogate the ritual of American racism. “Betye Saar: Call and Response,” the first of two major solo exhibitions this fall devoted to Saar’s legendary career, displays the artist’s work alongside her sketchbooks, which are filled with notes and detailed diagrams that look surprisingly similar to her finished pieces. It’s a rare and satisfying peek inside the mind of one of our greatest living artists. A selection of images from the exhibition’s catalogue appears below.

Betye Saar, The Edge of Ethics, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

Betye Saar, Sketchbook, 2009–10. Collection of Betye Saar. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

Betye Saar, The Weight of Buddha (Contemplating Mother Wit and Street Smarts), 2014, mixed media assemblage, 19.5″ x 7″ x 7″. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.

 

Betye Saar, Sketchbook, 2013. Collection of Betye Saar. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

Betye Saar, I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break, 1998, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gift of Lynda and Stewart Resnick through the 2018 Collectors Committee. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

Betye Saar, Sketchbook, 1998. Collection of Betye Saar. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

Betye Saar, Supreme Quality, 1998. The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Mortimer and Sara Hays Acquisition Fund. © Betye Saar. Photo courtesy Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, by Tim Lanterman.

 

Betye Saar, Sketchbook, 1998. Collection of Betye Saar. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. © Betye Saar. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA.

 

“Betye Saar: Call and Response” is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through April 5, 2020. The show will then travel to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. All images taken from Betye Saar: Call and Response, by Carol S. Eliel, out now from Prestel and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.