Betye Saar: The Divine Face

The Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig purchased the assemblage The Divine Face from 1971 together with the Museum Ludwig for the museum’s collection as part of the prize awarded to Betye Saar. The work will be presented in the museum’s collection from June 1 to September 12, 2021 along with two etchings recently acquired through the “Perlensucher am Museum Ludwig” initiative as well as a collage and an artist’s book. The film Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business, which was produced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for an exhibition there in 2019/2020, will also be shown as part of the presentation. This recognition of the artist, who was born in Los Angeles in 1926 and is still little known in Germany, is long overdue, the jury consisting of Christophe Cherix, Robert Lehman Foundation chief curator of drawings and prints at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig; and the board members of the association decided. For more than fifty years, Betye Saar has created assemblages from a wide variety of found objects, which she combines with drawing, prints, painting, and photography.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the award ceremony and presentation for Betye Saar have been postponed to early summer 2021. On May 30, 2021, the American artist will be awarded the twenty-sixth Wolfgang Hahn Prize by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig via Zoom.

Guest ju­ror Chris­tophe Ch­er­ix on Be­tye Saar: “Be­tye Saar’s work oc­cu­pies a piv­o­tal po­si­tion in Amer­i­can art. Her as­sem­blages from the 1960s and ear­ly 1970s in­ter­weave is­sues of race, politics, and su­per­na­t­u­ral be­lief sys­tems with her per­so­n­al his­to­ry. Hav­ing grown up in a ra­cial­ly se­g­re­gat­ed so­ci­e­ty, Saar has long held that art can tran­s­cend our dark­est mo­ments and deep­est fears. To­day, the emer­gence of a new gen­er­a­tion of artists min­ing her poig­nant le­ga­cy attests to how pro­found­ly Saar has changed the course of Amer­i­can art. The 2020 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize not on­ly ac­knowl­edges her ex­traor­d­i­nary achieve­ments and in­flu­ence, but al­so rec­og­nizes the need to re­vis­it how the his­to­ry of art in re­cent de­cades has been writ­ten.”

This recog­ni­tion of the artist, who was born in Los An­ge­les in 1926 and is still lit­tle known in Ger­many, is high­ly time­ly, the ju­ry con­sist­ing of; Chris­tophe Ch­er­ix, Robert Leh­man Foun­da­tion chief cu­ra­tor of draw­in­gs and prints at the Mu­se­um of Mod­ern Art (Mo­MA) in New York; Yil­maz Dziewior, di­rec­tor of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig and the board mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion de­cid­ed. For more than fif­ty years, Be­tye Saar has cre­at­ed as­sem­blages from a wide va­ri­e­ty of found ob­jects, which she com­bines with draw­ing, prints, paint­ing, and pho­tog­ra­phy.

The Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst ac­quired the as­sem­blage The Di­vine Face for Mu­se­um Lud­wig’s col­lec­tion. This work will be pre­sent­ed along­side some works on pa­per by the artist in the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig.