Press release for "Alison Saar: STILL"

              Press Contact: Kathy MacPherson
kmacpherson@otis.edu / (310) 665.6909
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Otis College of Art and Design’s
Ben Maltz Gallery Presents: Alison Saar: STILL . . .
Solo Exhibition August 18 – November 17, 2012.
LOS ANGELES, CA - July, 2012 – The Ben Maltz Gallery
continues to present and document new work by artists in the
SoCal region with the solo exhibition STILL . . . by Otis alumna
Alison Saar (MFA 1981).
Informed by artistic traditions from the Americas to Africa and beyond, and by her mixed racial upbringing,
Saar fuses her paradoxical responses to the black-and-white delineations of political and social forces into a
powerful, visual, and kinesthetic tension. She uses the history and associations of her materials, everyday
experience, African art and ritual, Greek mythology, and the stark sculptural tradition of German Expressionism
to infuse her work with a primal intensity that challenges cultural and historic references and stereotypes. STILL
. . . gathers together for the first time four never-exhibited works made during a residency at Pilchuck Glass
School in Seattle with six new bronze and mixed-media sculptures.
Saar is a mature and significant sculptor who has achieved broad recognition for her studio and public art
throughout the country. Her work is held in many collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Metropolitan Museum of Art; and she has major public art works in Los
Angeles, New York, and Chicago. She has received numerous prestigious awards from the Guggenheim
Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She forcefully investigates
elements of marginalization and discrimination in society to present poetic responses through a process of self-scrutiny
and introspection as to how these historical burdens can be transformed, and how symbolic atonement,
and even some measure of redemption, can be imagined. Her work mirrors an entirely American process of
spiritual and political bifurcation, and the evolution of historical recovery. As Lowry Stokes Sims, Curator at the
Museum of Arts and Design, writes in her essay for Feallan and Fallow, “Alison Saar’s library of references is
as varied and rich as her own heritage. Her special gift lies in her ability to translate the personal and the
culturally specific in such a way that it embodies concerns that not only transcend race but also gender.”
The forthcoming catalog, Alison Saar: STILL . . . (November, 2012), features an introduction by Meg Linton,
Curator of the Exhibition and OTIS Director of Galleries and Exhibitions; an essay by Dr. Barbara Thompson
and Phyllis Wattis, Curator of the Arts of Africa and the Americas at the Cantor Art Center, Stanford University;
poetry by Harryette Mullen; and full-color reproductions of the work and installation.
This exhibition is funded in part by Contemporary Collectors - Orange County. Special thanks to Decker
Studios, L.A. Louver, John David O’Brien, and Otis Continuing Education and Alumni Relations.
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