Modern and Contemporary Sculptors

Featured Speaker: Wendy Evans, MA

This series is a continuation of our Modern  and Contemporary Sculptors lectures. These two lectures concentrate on sculptors who work in different materials, from latex and fiberglass and scrap metal to found objects, and who, through their art, offer commentary on contemporary personal and political issues.

April 26: Eva Hesse: Unconventional and Eccentric
Despite her untimely death at age 34, Eva Hesse managed to make her mark. Her abstract sculptures were innovative and influential. She subverted the prevailing rigid geometry of minimalism by introducing new materials, new methods, a sense of the absurd, and a whiff of eroticism.

May 24: Betye and Alison Saar: Transforming Outrage Into Art
This presentation is about a mother-daughter pair of contemporary artists who manage in different ways to create art that is both strong and tender. Betye Saar assembles vintage, collected, and found objects to create art that addresses the denigration of Black people in American culture and other issues resulting from slavery. Over a long, continuing career, she stuck to her goal as an artist “to create works that expose injustice and reveal beauty.”

Alison Saar is one of the strongest sculptors working today. She mostly carves life-size figures that are powerful and poignant. Her art looks nothing like her mother’s, but like Betye Saar, Alison also likes to use scavenged materials and to deal with issues of identity that are personal as well as political.
 

Presenter Biography

Presenter: Wendy Evans is an art historian with advanced degrees from Oxford University and Wayne State University. She taught art history at Wayne State, the College for Creative Studies, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. She has a passion for art that she loves to share with groups like Osher.
 

Coordinator: Susan Schreiber