COSTA, Chiara; Mario MAINETTI (eds.)
Betye Saar: Uneasy Dancer

Drawing from a variety of cultural forms, objects and materials - from black identity traditions to influences of beliefs of all kind (Unitarian, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and syncretic faiths), Betye Saar's artistic process is, in her own words, 'a stream of consciousness thing'. Most of her works explore rituals through everyday life objects and experiences, presenting the transcendental realm in the quotidian in an unprecedented way. Within that equation, Saar blurs the boundaries between art and life, between the physical and metaphysical. Moreover, spirituality in Saar’s work does not reside only in the evocative works through which she addresses her concerns and her knowledge on a myriad of traditions. On the contrary, it is to be found in the artistic exercise of transforming common material into evocative new imagery, involving the viewer in resonant fabulations of the real. [publisher's note]

Published by Fondazione Prada, 2021
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