Alison Saar, Sculptor

If any art work could launch a dozen dissertations it would be a sculpture by Alison Saar.   Saar's sculptures have a way of dominating any gallery.  When I saw her sculpture Bareroot (below) last year at the exhibition One Another: Spiderlike, I Spin Mirrors  at the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, it hypnotized me.  Here in the middle of a large marble gallery modeled on a Greek temple, the Erectheion. a woman, whose extremities appear to have been ripped from the earth, lies curled in upon herself, eyes closed.  She must be cold, traumatized but by what - we can only guess.  Her creator, Alison Saar, makes powerful use of humble materials: wood, bronze, tin, and tar.

In Coup (above), a black woman sits upright on chair, her gaze level and fixed; her braided hair stretches behind her becoming a rope chain that holds together a pile of old suitcases.  She holds a pair of shears in her hands; they are slightly askance as though the woman is ready to cut loose from her baggage.  That baggage is both physical and metaphysical.
The title is surely the key to understanding Saar's intentions although, like any work of art, there are layers of meaning that an attentive viewer could find there.   "Coup  - noun, singular: Among certain Native American peoples, a feat of bravery performed in battle, especially the touching of an enemy's body without causing injury."   Suffering and the ineffable suffuse Saar's figures.  The physicality in Saar's sculptures is her labor in creating them made visible;  she cuts and hammers remnants salvaged from old tin ceilings, twists wires, pounds nails, and saws and sands wood.  Yes, it is possible to use a chainsaw to create works with great spirit.

Saar was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1956.  She includes among her ancestors Native Americans, African Americans, Germans, and Scots. Her mother is the artist Betye Saar. Alison Saar began her art studies by helping her father with his conservation work. She credits this experience with helping her realize her interest in sculpture.   Her work is in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and her  public commissions are on display in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

Image:
1. Alison Saar - Coup, 2006, Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara.
2. Alison Saar - Bareroot, 2007, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo.