A new commission from legendary artist Betye Saar entitled Seeking Secrets of Destiny was installed yesterday at the Legacy Gallery inside the expanded Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery, Alabama.
“We are thrilled to have a newly commissioned piece from the legendary Betye Saar at the Legacy Museum gallery,” EJI director Bryan Stevenson said. “Ms. Saar’s lifetime of work on memory and history makes her latest piece perfect for our collection which uses art to reinforce learning about the legacy of slavery. We are also excited that her piece will be positioned next to a work from her talented daughter, Alison Saar.”
Seeking Secrets of Destiny is a mixed media assemblage that explores history, memory, and the movement of both physical and spiritual forces of nature.
To celebrate the installation, the candles that adorn Seeking Secrets of Destiny were lit, a feature that Ms. Saar noted is meant to represent “not physical light but enlightenment.” An ever-evolving piece, the candles will drip down when lit, changing the texture of the piece itself upon each lighting.
“In many of my works, I’ve used canoes and boats as I’m drawn to their symbolism of movement and journeys. This particular canoe has wear and tear, holes and scrapes, of the journey it has endured,” Betye Saar told attendees at a reception to celebrate the installation.
“The interior is stenciled with the haunting diagram of the 1781 slave ship Brooks, a stark reminder of how people were packed, shipped, and trafficked across oceans in the most horrific of conditions. The red is about the blood spilled, the sacrifices made,” she explained.
“It’s a reminder that these histories are still present in the land we walk on. For me, this work is about movement, both human and animal, and the sacrifices made in the journey. It’s about the mystery of history, seen and unseen, shadowed and then brightened by the light we bring to it.”