2021 | Mirror, Mirror: The Prints of Alison Saar
EXHIBITION | September 7, 2021 – March 12, 2022
PROGRAMS 9/28| Opening Reception, Tuesday, September 28, 2021, 5–7 p.m. (Museum)
PROGRAMS 9/29| Exhibition Tour with Alison Saar, Wednesday, September 29, 2021, 2–3 p.m. (Museum)
PROGRAMS 2/10| Alison Saar, Jo Hockenhull Distinguished Lectureship, Thursday, February 10, 2022, 4:30-5:30 p.m. (Online)
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ABOUT | American artist Alison Saar is known not only for her powerful sculptures—she is also a master of the art of printmaking. In both forms, she employs a personal vocabulary informed by history, race, and mythology. Her influences range from ancient Europe, Africa, and American folk art. Saar’s works narrate stories of the African American experience, moving effortlessly from the personal to the political. In many of her works, she charts the tragic history of slavery in America, but her figures symbolize defiance and strength. Other recurring images are informed by jazz, romance, and desire.
Mirror Mirror: The Prints of Alison Saar features nearly 50 prints and five sculptures by the Los Angeles–based artist over the past 30 years. Her lithographs, etchings and woodblock prints are evocations of the sculptures for which she is renowned. Saar undertakes printmaking with the same tangible approach to unconventional materials and methods found in her sculpture. Cast-off objects such as old chair backs and found ceiling tin become the foundations for etching or lithography plates. Carved wooden panels used for wood block prints echo similar techniques established in her hewn wooden forms. In addition to printing on paper, Saar also employs a variety of used fabrics like vintage handkerchiefs, old shop rags and antique sugar sacks that are layered, cut, sewn and collaged―empowering the content of the image while resisting the flat repetitive nature of the medium.
Funding for this exhibition is provided by the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Endowment, Nancy Spitzer, and members of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU.
About The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation’s contemporary art collection is one of the most notable in North America. The Foundation has shared its art with millions across the U.S. and internationally through groundbreaking exhibitions, publications, and programs. Founded by ARTNews Top 200 Collector Jordan D. Schnitzer—whose passion for art began in his mother’s contemporary art gallery in Portland, Ore.—the Foundation has organized over 180 exhibitions from its collection and additionally loaned thousands of artworks to over 130 museums at no cost to the institutions. Schnitzer began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in 1988 and today is North America’s foremost print collector. His Foundation’s collection consists of thousands of works, including a wide variety of prints, sculptures, paintings, glass, and mixed media works.
LOCATION | The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU is located in the Crimson Cube (on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium and the CUB) on the WSU Pullman campus. For more information please visit museum.wsu.edu/about.
