Sunday, September 25, 2011

A Work From The Sixties by Betye Saar


I saw this work in the daily email from Art Knowledge News and just had to post it. It was included in a show at the Getty Center in Los Angeles called "Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970. Show dates were October 1, 2011 through February 5, 2012. Here's a link to the Getty's page about Betye Saar that includes a video of her talking about her work. She cites the Watts Towers and Joseph Cornell as specific influences but also talks about the artist as shaman and what viewers bring to art to complete its transformation.

The Getty site comments on the 1950-1970 period covered by this show:
...Los Angeles has shed its stereotype as the land of sunshine, palm trees, and movie stars to become an artistic powerhouse and an increasingly important international creative capital. This fundamental shift in the cultural landscape of the city dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, a period of critical importance in art history that has never before been fully studied and presented.


Too bad the show is long over.

3 comments:

  1. the dates you listed for the show are Oct 1,2011 thru Feb 5, 2012.... are those dates wrong???..... if not then there is plenty of time to see this show....

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  2. If you read what I said more closely, you would see that I talked about this show in the past tense and said "show dates WERE October 1, 2011 through February 5, 2012." This show opened nearly a year ago and closed last February.

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