“When I put one shape next to another, I look at the new shape created in space,” Asawa once remarked. Here, five chairs emerge from a mosaic of ink squares, while trails of ink squares outline two more chairs within the negative space at top right. Asawa created the square marks using a felt-tip marker. For other works in this series, such as the nearby Untitled (MI.121, Chair with Straw Bottom), she incised notches in markers, which created striations when applied to paper. Through these drawings, she investigated how patterns can prompt a new relationship between figure and ground, one in which outlines are as permeable as the networks of her wire sculptures.
Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, October 19, 2025–February 07, 2026
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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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