Assemblage
Almost by definition, works of art resist analysis. Their definition may be what you have left after you’ve taken away the sum of their constituent parts.
By the same token, Betye Saar’s work to date resists analysis. Not only formal analysis; it resists other systems which analysis necessitates, such as chronology. It can be difficult to date a work of Saar’s by reference to its form, materials, or theme. The oeuvre exists itself like a huge assemblage, all of whose parts are interdependent, intrareferential, and, in a strange way, timeless. There are no periods to mark progress along a line.
If the work needs to be taken as one, it also needs to be taken — as the artist readily points out — as one with her life. She makes no separation between the two. The environment and activities of her life are parts of the same assemblage. She lives her life as art and lives her art as life. Many artists claim to do this, but few do it as fully or consistently as Betye Saar.
In this way the critical task itself becomes assemblage: creating a juxtaposition of constituent parts in such a way as to afford the proper insight.