Alison Saar: STILL

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i. For historical interpretations of alcohol reform in the U.S., see Eric Burns, 2004, The Spirits of America: A Social History
of Alcohol, Philadelphia, Pa: Temple University Press; John Kobler, 1973, Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,
New York: Putnam; and John J. Rumbarger, 1989, Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of
America, 1800-1930, Albany: State University of New York Press.
ii. This and all subsequent quotes are derived from an interview conducted by the author with Alison Saar at her studio in
Los Angeles on July 28, 2012.
iii. Philip Ross, “Occupational Skin Lesions Due To Pitch And Tar,” The British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4572 (Aug.
21, 1948), pp. 369-374.
iv. Bruce E. Stewart, “Attacking ‘Red-Legged Grasshoppers’: Moonshiners, Violence, and the Politics of Federal Liquor
Taxation in Western North Carolina, 1865-1876,” Appalachian Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (FALL 2004), pp. 26-48 and Loyal
Durand, Jr., “‘Mountain Moonshining’ in East Tennessee,” Geographical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr., 1956), pp. 168-181.
Barbara Thompson, Ph.D.
Phyllis Wattis Curator of the Arts of Africa and the Americas
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Right:
Black Lightning,
2012 (detail)
Glass, shoestrings,
found mop, bucket
and water
65 x 40 x 24 inches
End notes:
in this exhibition, is “about me being menopausal, being interested in moving into new territory in
my work, having new ideas, new materials, and that I don’t know what any of it is, and that I’m
doing things on precipices, ready to cut away the old self but trying to find the stillness to let this
other part of me mature and come out and be realized.”
In all their diversity and weight as visual, lexical, and historical allusions to racism, ageism, and
sexism, the new works in STILL… clearly declare the core notion that Saar finds herself in a
particularly fragile moment. She is roused from a state of incubation, energized with new ideas
that have yet to take full form. Saar’s renewed engagement with herself is taking her art beyond
her current place as a mother facing the empty nest. “Even though I’ve had a career all this time,
I’m still extremely dedicated to getting [my children] to school or picking them up and all that.”
Almost speaking in a whisper, she continues, “It’s going to really change. I feel like I have to… let
go of control… and remake myself.”
Saar becomes very still...
Barbara Thompson received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Iowa. She is now the Curator of the Arts
of Africa and the Americas at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University before which she was Curator of African,
Oceanic, and Native American Collections at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. She has taught art history
and anthropology at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa. She specializes in historical arts from
east Africa as well as in contemporary arts from Africa and the Diaspora. Her exhibitions and scholarly publications
include projects such as Crossing Currents: The Synergy of Jean Michel Basquiat and Ouattara Watts (2003); A Point of
View: Africa on Display? (2003–4); So Much Trouble in The World—Believe It or Not!, a site-specific installation by Fred
Wilson (2005), and Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body (2008).