Apricota Journal

Issue no.2

2019

Exhibition Review: Lita Barrie on Alison Saar

Alison Saar creates a world of Topsy Turvydom where gender and racial hierarchies are turned upside down by black warrior-babes who rebel against slavery. Her powerful exhibition at L.A. Louver Gallery reflected the collective outrage of our time.

Saar skillfully uses found materials that are naturally imbued with history to weave her references to different mythologies and cultures into a visually compelling postmodern narrative underpinned by subtextual meaning. She ties the tale of Topsy to Greek mythology, African sculpture, and the current outcry in #Me Too, #Times Up, and #Black Lives Matter.

Unlike the “wicked” contrarian slave girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who was pacified by the gift of a single lock of golden hair, Saar’s heroine reinvents her identity as a fierce warrior-queen by seizing a scalp of golden hair as a war trophy in Topsy and the Golden Fleece (2017). This outstanding exhibition of sixteen sculptures, paintings, and drawings recalls the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts. Saar reimagines Topsy as a Medea-like heroine with an army of smaller Topsys who revolt against their subordination.

In the exhibition’s central work, five female rebels turn their tools of upside down into tools of war. Originally, these plantation tools assigned their slave identities: a bale hook (for cotton), a machete (for sugarcane), a knife (for tobacco), a hoe (for indigo), and a sickle (for rice). But in one sculpture and a related painting, White Guise ( 2017), a defiant domestic slave in a European white dress wields an iron – dripping with blood.

Saar transforms the cotton branches worn in slaves’ hair for camouflage into the regal crowns of warrior queens. They reappear throughout the exhibition as the central leitmotif for emancipation.These majestic hairstyles resemble the beautiful stars against an indigo sky in High Cotton (2017),a study for a painting on dyed seed sacks and vintage linens. In Bitter Crop ( 2018) a graceful, reclining nude wears cotton branches as a symbol of fecundity, like a proud African Queen. Like many works in this exhibition, the painting conveys its subject’s confidence in her own sexuality through her body language and inward gaze. Saar portrays women who embody galactic feminine power, which cannot be suppressed in any manmade world once women seize it.

Saar is known for using hair as a signifier of female identity, but the regal hairstyles in these angry new artworks also signify defiant acts of self-empowerment. In Jubilee (2017), a seductress cuts off her hair in an act of self-renewal, to sever the ties with her past subservient identity. In The Wrath of Topsy (2018), the braided wire twists recall Medusa’s snakes, as a fierce warning sign against unwanted approaches.

These works are painstakingly, made in an almost devotional way that resonates physically with the viewer.The reclaimed ceiling tin Saar uses over her wood sculptures has a beautiful patina created by a natural aging process – much like that of the vintage cloth she weaves into her paintings. Saar’s work combines the raw power of tribal art with the postmodern sophistication of complex cultural subtexts.

As the daughter and granddaughter of artists, Saar draws on a deep understanding of assemblage art techniques she learned from her mother, Betye Saar, and a commitment to fusing recycled materials and storytelling. Her grandmother made gifts from things around her, which influenced her mother’s pioneering assemblages; in the same spirit, Saar recycles classic stories weaving the narrative strands together with found materials to create a new feminist narrative.

Walter Pater said famously, “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” Saar communicates her powerful political message of outrage with a sense of urgency that recalls her songstress heroine, Nina Simone, performing “ Mississippi Goddam.” It is rare to find emotional intensity in visual art that has the visceral impact of an angry song for our time. – Lita Barrie

Alison Saar: “Topsy Turvy” L.A. Louver Gallery ( Los Angeles, 28 March-25 May 2018 ).

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