RUTH ASAWA RETROSPECTIVE: Spectacular Hanging Wire Sculptures and Much More

Wire Sculptures, Ruth Asawa Retrospective, SFMOMA.

When I was in Oakland in August, I took BART to San Francisco to see the Ruth Asawa exhibit at SFMOMA, just before it ended. The exhibit, a retrospective of Asawa’s life’s work, will open in New York at the Museum of Modern Art on October 19. It is an amazing show, featuring not only Ruth Asawa's unique wire sculptures, but a wealth of her other work--drawings, paintings, and other media. 

Photograph of Ruth and her young son in front of a sculpture in San Francisco.

Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) began her art career at Black Mountain College (BMC) in North Carolina in 1946. In 1949 she moved to San Francisco with her husband, Albert Lanier, an architect, who had also been a student at BMC. They had six children! Ruth spent the rest of her life living and working in San Francisco and was active in the art community.

Meander, ink on paper, 1948-49.

The exhibit is arranged chronologically, and fills twelve rooms of the museum, beginning with her student work at Black Mountain College.

Ruth had a job in the college laundry. This design was created with the stamp that marked the college linens.

Folded paper design.

Throughout her early works you can see Ruth’s fascination with repetitive motifs, from folded paper, fabric designs, to pen and ink drawings.

 In these two pieces, one chair is defined with positive strong black strokes, the other by negative space.

Detail of chair. Created by repeated dabs of a felt tip marker.

Ruth’s first wire works were baskets, inspired by a trip to Mexico in 1947 where a craftsman showed her how he made egg baskets by looping wire.  

Early works--baskets.

But what has made Ruth Asawa famous are her hanging wire creations of all sizes and shapes--some with shapes nestled within one another, some exploding outward, some resembling giant teddy bears, others like tear drops or space ships, some elegant, others whimsical, and some even calling to mind an extraterrestrial! In room after room the hanging sculptures were the center of attention in the SFMOMA exhibit. Although suspended by wires from the ceiling, they seemed to float in space.

One large room of the exhibit reproduces the living room of Ruth Asawa’s Noe Valley house in San Francisco, which was filled with hanging wire sculptures and other works of art, both hers and those of friends. Many of the same pieces seen in the photo were displayed in the room at the museum.

 

Photograph by Rondal Partridge of Ruth Asawa's family in her living room.

Ruth loved her garden. Among my favorite pieces in the room were watercolor paintings of a geranium and a detailed drawing of a sunflower.

The exhibit is huge, with more than 300 works of art. Truth be told, my friend and I only looked closely at half the exhibit, spending the first two hours in the first six rooms looking at each and every item. By then we were starving for lunch, and walked quickly through the remaining six rooms in order to exit through the gift shop, stopping briefly to look at just a few pieces. We had a tasty lunch in the museum café on the fifth floor. We could have reentered the exhibit after lunch, but would have had to stand in a long line, so decided not to. In any case I felt I had a good experience and I knew I would enjoy the exhibit again and again as I looked at my photos at home.

Casts of Ruth Asawa's hands.