Alison Saar, MFA 1981
About Alison Saar
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Born in 1956, Alison Saar ('81, MFA Fine Arts) is a renowned artist native to Los Angeles. Her practice incorporates sculpture, mixed media assemblage, and installation. Saar's work is focused on the African diaspora and Black female identity, drawing influence from African, Caribbean, and Latin-American folk art and spirituality. Her highly personal, often life-sized sculptures are marked by emotional candor, contrasting materials, and mixed messages that carry a high degree of cultural subtext.
Saar's parents were both artists: the celebrated assemblage artist Betye Saar and painter-slash-art conservator Richard Saar. Alison went on to study studio art and art history at Scripps College in Claremont, California, receiving a BA in Art History in 1978. She then earned her MFA in Fine Arts from Otis in 1981.
In 1983, Saar became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, incorporating found objects from the city environment. Saar completed another residency in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1985, which augmented her urban style with Southwest Native American and Mexican influences.
She is a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Artist Fellowship. She has also held residencies at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Roswell Museum of Art, and Dartmouth College. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She is represented by L.A. Louver Gallery.
Books (and More)
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Body Politics: the female image in Luba art and the sculpture of Alison Saar
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Although the sculpture of African American artist Alison Saar is influenced by African objects and ideas, this volume does not seek to establish direct linkages, opting instead to present dialogues. It features an extended interchange between noted Africanist and art historian Mary Nooter Roberts and Saar, and through a series of photographed images, it also establishes a visual dialogue between Saar's frequently large-scale sculptural pieces and the intimate and intricate works of the Luba peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Call Number: NB237 S165 A35 2000ISBN: 0930741811Publication Date: 2000-12-01 -
Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar
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Family Legacies celebrates the remarkable art of Betye Saar and her daughters, Lezley and Alison Saar. It explores the sharing of artistic and spiritual traditions within a family and shows how two generations of women use art to express changing ideas about gender, race, and ethnicity. Looking at the formal and thematic parallels in this family's work reveals a fascinating glimpse into their creative dynamic. Each artist's response to contemporary social issues -- identity, sexuality, spirituality, the female body, and stereotypes -- emerges through her strikingly beautiful creations. During the 1960s and 1970s, Betye became an established artist in Los Angeles. Her autobiographical and political assemblages during this period affirmed the important role played by women, African Americans, and the artworks they created in defining contemporary culture. Lezley and Alison built upon the direction forged by their mother, with assemblages and sculptures that interpret both their family's history and spiritual traditions. All three artists challenge the prevailing idea of a singular and unchanging African American identity by creating alternative interpretations of history, culture, and race. Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar share a passion for mixing media and incorporating objects into their work to create compositions that are layered with both personal and universal meaning. Drawing upon popular culture as well as sacred arts and beliefs from around the word, the three artists attempt to formulate a more multilayered view of themselves. The objects featured, dating from the 1960s to 2005, include mixed media sculptures and paintings, assemblages, collages, and a collaborative installation created by the three Saars. Key works by each artist, representing the full chronological range and stylistic evolution of their oeuvre, underline their family ties, multi-racial heritage, and strong affinities to nature and diverse cultures. The works demonstrate a desire to reclaim the visual representation of African American women by exploring such subjects as slavery, stereotypes of domestic labor, and historical images of the female body. Through distinctive yet parallel styles, Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar have created a body of transcendent and empowering work that has impacted the history of contemporary art. This book and its accompanying exhibition highlight their position at the crossroads of artistic, feminist, and African American cultural legacies.
Call Number: N6537 S112 A4 2005bISBN: 029598564XPublication Date: 2005-01-01 -
Beyond Mammy, Jezebel and Sapphire
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Engaging a wide range of experiences, techniques and materials, the nine artists featured in this volume challenge the images of black women that continue to pervade our culture and influence perceptions: stereotypes such as the suffering mama, the angry black woman and the temptress. Brought together in this publication, works by Romare Bearden, Mildred Howard, Wangechi Mutu, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Robert Colescott, Ellen Gallagher, Alison Saar and Mickalene Thomas disrupt expectations and replace simplistic narratives with nuanced, sophisticated meditations on contemporary identity.
Call Number: N6538 N5 J67 2016ISBN: 9780692803172Publication Date: 2018-02-27 -
Alison Saar: Still...
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Published in conjunction with the exhibition [of the same title], Aug. 18-Nov. 17, 2012, organized by the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design
Call Number: NB237 S165 A4 2012ISBN: 9780930209339Publication Date: 2012-01-01
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More items by and about Alison Saar in OwlCat Includes books and videos. You can broaden the search to find articles and items about Saar.
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Alison Saar in the OtisDID Access limited to the Otis Community. View images
Related Otis-Affiliated Exhibitions and Events
Ben Maltz Gallery
- Alison Saar: Still...
Solo Exhibition, August 18 - November 17, 2012 - Looking Forward, Looking Black
Group Exhibition, March 22 - April 28, 2001
Barnsdall Art Center
- Nine Decades of Los Angeles Art
Group exhibition, January 20 - April 2, 2006
Lectures and Videos*
*Some of these items are restricted to the Otis Community.
- Otis Legacy Project (restricted access)
- OTIS SPEAKS
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