I became aware of Ruth Osawa (1926-2013) in May of the year she died, when I watched a circa 1990 work of hers, made of crocheted oxidized copper wire, sell at Skinner in Boston to an internet bidder for $73,800. The piece resembles a series of nested wire egg-baskets, each of the smaller ones visible through the lacy mesh of the others. But the forms are not separate. The untitled work, known by its number, S.069/90, is one continuous shaped copper wire. “She learned this technique while on a trip to Mexico in 1947,” Skinner art department head Robin Starr told me. “She had studied at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller, so she was thinking about materials that were common but unusual for an artist to use. When she saw some women weaving egg baskets out of wire, that was her ‘aha!’ moment.” Two days before the Skinner sale, another of the artist’s untitled wire sculptures, numbered S.108, fetched $1,443,750 at Christie’s in New York City. What made the difference? Size. Skinner sold a “little guy,” in Starr’s phrase, measuring just 6¼" tall with a 13½" diameter. The Asawa that was sold by Christie's for what was then a record price was 137” x 23” x 23”.
That large piece may be one of those pictured above, in a publicity shot for Asawa's retrospective, where I was lucky enough to see it at MoMA. There were some three hundred pieces arranged in several galleries in such a way that viewers could get up fairly close to them and inspect them. Bob and I both marveled at the sheer craft of them. How could that be one continuous wire? How did she, the mother of six children, and a social activist to boot, manage to be so prolific? A video played in one of the galleries, showing her working with children, helping them to form figures out of flour dough. She looked like any typical elementary school teacher. Appearances deceive, just like her crocheted works of art.
That large piece may be one of those pictured above, in a publicity shot for Asawa's retrospective, where I was lucky enough to see it at MoMA. There were some three hundred pieces arranged in several galleries in such a way that viewers could get up fairly close to them and inspect them. Bob and I both marveled at the sheer craft of them. How could that be one continuous wire? How did she, the mother of six children, and a social activist to boot, manage to be so prolific? A video played in one of the galleries, showing her working with children, helping them to form figures out of flour dough. She looked like any typical elementary school teacher. Appearances deceive, just like her crocheted works of art.
RSS Feed
