Ruth Asawa
Untitled (S.398, Hanging Eight-Lobed, Four-Part, Discontinuous Surface Form within a Form with Spheres in the Seventh and Eighth Lobes)
c. 1955
Brass, galvanized steel, and steel wire
Not on view
This sculpture demonstrates the near-infinite possibilities a simple material like wire can yield. Asawa first began working with wire during a 1947 trip to Toluca, Mexico, where she learned how to loop wire into baskets from a local craft person. Upon returning to the US, she developed her own wire-weaving technique at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. In this work, interlocking rows of loops form a mesh-like surface that defines a hollow volume. Asawa’s use of negative space as a compositional element became a hallmark of her abstract sculpture—one of many aspects of her multifaceted practice.
2024
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Ruth Asawa
American, 1926–2013 58 works onlineWhether it’s a craft or whether it’s art. That is a definition that people put on things,” artist, activist, and educator Ruth Asawa has said.
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