SFMOMA
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was a short and scenic walk from our apartment, past the Yerba Buena Center and its colorful murals, gardens, and carousel.
The big exhibit at SFMOMA was a retrospective on Ruth Asawa, an artist revered in San Francisco for her public art and her passion for arts education. I had seen Asawa’s wire-loop sculptures before, but now I could learn to appreciate them in the context of her life’s work.
Ruth Asawa was born in California to parents who had immigrated from Japan. The entire family was sent to an internment camp when she was a teenager. Later, she studied at Black, Mountain College, where her classmates included Josef Albers and Robert Rauschenberg, and she took courses taught by Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Willem deKooning, and R. Buckminster Fuller. She worked at the college laundry and made art with just paper, ink, and a rubber stamp. (Coincidentally, when we lived in Asheville last May, our apartment was directly above a small museum dedicated to Black Mountain College. )
Asawa learned to crochet with wire while visiting Josef Albers in Mexico. The exhibit featured an extensive collection of the looped-wire sculptures that brought her national fame in the 1950s. Each suspended form was different and cast intriguing shadows on the walls and floor. The sculptural and transparent mesh reminded me of the large heads by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. The sinuous, biomorphic shapes reminded me of glass sculptures by American artist Dale Chihuly. Asawa’s work was a fusion of geometric precision and organic flow. I loved it.
Another part of the exhibit was all about Asawa’s house in Noe Valley, where she lived with her husband and six children. The house was filled with art, and materials and spaces for marking art. It must have been a wonderful place to grow up.
Asawa experimented with many other artistic media. She created tied-wire sculptures inspired by trees and flowers, running electric currents through the wire to change its color and texture. She made lithographs and clay sculptures. And she created several large public sculptures and fountains around San Francisco. I’ve enjoyed hunting for them. One notable work is a fountain in Union Square, an iron casting of clay figures made by 200 local children. It’s a nice symbol of her commitment to making arts education available to all.
