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拍品專文
A true visionary of twentieth-century art, Ruth Asawa created a singular oeuvre that melded together drawing and sculpture into a groundbreaking practice. Untitled (S.410, Hanging Seven-Lobed, Three-Part Continuous Form (Stripes) is a masterful example of her exquisitely woven wire forms, and pulls from many different artistic genres, the natural world, and her own personal narrative. Manipulated with a dexterous hand, her compositions highlight the very medium with which they are constructed while transforming such a base material into visual poetry. “All my wire sculptures come from the same loop,” Asawa has noted. “And there’s only one way to do it. The idea is to do it simply, and you end up with a shape. That shape comes out working with the wire. You don’t think ahead of time, this is what I want. You work on it as you go along” (R. Asawa, quoted in J. Hoefer, “Ruth Asawa: A Working Life,” The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air, exh. cat., Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 2006, p. 16). Hanging in space like visualizations of air, Asawa’s sculptures are unparalleled in their ability to optically shift between dimensions right in front of the viewer.
Monumental in scale, Untitled (S.410) is a vertical hanging structure divided into seven discrete sections. Asawa’s almost clinical naming convention lays out a very straightforward description of the work: Hanging Seven-Lobed, Three-Part Continuous Form (Stripes). Each lobe is a rounded portion that smoothly transitions into the next as the shape narrows before blooming outward. Two spheres are encased inside, they float within the larger form at about one-third and two-thirds of the way down the sculpture. Made from meticulously woven wire, the artist’s primary medium, Untitled (S.410) draws allusions to dried-out husks, seed pods, or other natural phenomena. This connection to the poetic forms of nature is intentional, and Asawa once noted, “These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden” (R. Asawa, quoted in S. Smee, “Review of Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, Pulitzer Arts Foundation”, The Washington Post, September 19, 2018). Working in an almost trance like state for hours at a time, and with intense concentration, Asawa’s sculptures mimic the organic shapes of nature while still remaining completely abstract.
Growing up in Southern California, Asawa’s parents worked on a farm and she would frequently accompany them in the fields. The young artist was taken to drawing on the ground, and she once reminisced, "We had a leveler. It was pulled by four horses....I used to sit on the back of the leveler with my bare feet drawing forms in the sand, which later in life became the sculptural forms that make up the bulk of my sculptures" (R. Asawa, op. cit., p. 13). These temporary, continuous drawings heavily informed her later work. In 1947, as she was beginning to fully realize her own artistic goals, Asawa took a trip to Mexico where she became entranced by the woven wire baskets people were using to transport produce and eggs. Created out of everyday materials, she was especially drawn to the way the metal mesh enclosed space but was still porous to the air. Bringing these ideas home, the artist combined the technique and material with the biomorphic drawings that sprang from her youth. By doing so, she created a personal visual vocabulary that translated drawing into sculptural form to much acclaim.
In the summer of 1946, unable to continue her teaching degree because of lingering hostilities toward Japanese-Americans due to World War II, Asawa attended a session at the highly influential Black Mountain College in North Carolina. She was so inspired by what she found there that she stayed for three years. In that time, the young artist learned alongside Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning while they worked under luminaries like Buckminster Fuller and Merce Cunningham. The lessons from Bauhaus expatriate Josef Albers that would go on to inform Asawa’s practice most, as she later admitted, "The lesson taught us by Albers was to do something with a material which is unique to its properties. The artist must respect the integrity of the material. I realized I could make wire forms interlock, expand, and contract with a single strand because a line can go anywhere, whereas a solid sheet is limited" (R. Asawa, quoted in S. Dobbs, "Community and Commitment: An Interview with Ruth Asawa," Art Education, vol. 34, no. 5, September 1981, p. 15). This watershed moment helped Asawa to realize the interconnected nature between drawing and her sculptural practice. Taking the line off of the page and passing it through her hands, she imbued a simple idea with a captivating rhythm.
Monumental in scale, Untitled (S.410) is a vertical hanging structure divided into seven discrete sections. Asawa’s almost clinical naming convention lays out a very straightforward description of the work: Hanging Seven-Lobed, Three-Part Continuous Form (Stripes). Each lobe is a rounded portion that smoothly transitions into the next as the shape narrows before blooming outward. Two spheres are encased inside, they float within the larger form at about one-third and two-thirds of the way down the sculpture. Made from meticulously woven wire, the artist’s primary medium, Untitled (S.410) draws allusions to dried-out husks, seed pods, or other natural phenomena. This connection to the poetic forms of nature is intentional, and Asawa once noted, “These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden” (R. Asawa, quoted in S. Smee, “Review of Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, Pulitzer Arts Foundation”, The Washington Post, September 19, 2018). Working in an almost trance like state for hours at a time, and with intense concentration, Asawa’s sculptures mimic the organic shapes of nature while still remaining completely abstract.
Growing up in Southern California, Asawa’s parents worked on a farm and she would frequently accompany them in the fields. The young artist was taken to drawing on the ground, and she once reminisced, "We had a leveler. It was pulled by four horses....I used to sit on the back of the leveler with my bare feet drawing forms in the sand, which later in life became the sculptural forms that make up the bulk of my sculptures" (R. Asawa, op. cit., p. 13). These temporary, continuous drawings heavily informed her later work. In 1947, as she was beginning to fully realize her own artistic goals, Asawa took a trip to Mexico where she became entranced by the woven wire baskets people were using to transport produce and eggs. Created out of everyday materials, she was especially drawn to the way the metal mesh enclosed space but was still porous to the air. Bringing these ideas home, the artist combined the technique and material with the biomorphic drawings that sprang from her youth. By doing so, she created a personal visual vocabulary that translated drawing into sculptural form to much acclaim.
In the summer of 1946, unable to continue her teaching degree because of lingering hostilities toward Japanese-Americans due to World War II, Asawa attended a session at the highly influential Black Mountain College in North Carolina. She was so inspired by what she found there that she stayed for three years. In that time, the young artist learned alongside Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning while they worked under luminaries like Buckminster Fuller and Merce Cunningham. The lessons from Bauhaus expatriate Josef Albers that would go on to inform Asawa’s practice most, as she later admitted, "The lesson taught us by Albers was to do something with a material which is unique to its properties. The artist must respect the integrity of the material. I realized I could make wire forms interlock, expand, and contract with a single strand because a line can go anywhere, whereas a solid sheet is limited" (R. Asawa, quoted in S. Dobbs, "Community and Commitment: An Interview with Ruth Asawa," Art Education, vol. 34, no. 5, September 1981, p. 15). This watershed moment helped Asawa to realize the interconnected nature between drawing and her sculptural practice. Taking the line off of the page and passing it through her hands, she imbued a simple idea with a captivating rhythm.