{"id":30569,"date":"2025-08-29T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/30569\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T11:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:00:10","slug":"adrift-in-betye-saars-crepuscular-dreamscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/30569\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrift in Betye Saar\u2019s Crepuscular Dreamscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN MARINO, Calif. \u2014\u00a0Standing in the gallery of Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight<\/a>, you are bathed in oceanic, cobalt blue light. The buzz of neon lights drones in the background. It\u2019s hard to say if the temperature has truly dropped, or if it\u2019s psychosomatic, that the atmosphere has cooled your skin just by the power of suggestion. You\u2019re floating in space, or suspended underwater \u2014 gravity works differently here.<\/p>\n

The phases of the moon are painted on the wall in a matte metallic silver, and a small poem by Saar is draped across the wall: \u201cThe moon keeps vigil as a lone canoe drifts into a sea of tranquility seeking serenity in the twilight.\u201d In the middle of the room, a long canoe, 17 feet across, sits atop a bed of branches, bramble, and sheets of jagged wood. At either tip of the ship is a watchful eye guiding the raft in both directions. Two sentinels \u2014 antiques\u00a0affixed with antlers \u2014 keep watch at each end. Saar has crafted a fantastical scene; you can envision the boat careening upriver, striding forth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The vessel is occupied by bird cages confining animal antlers and seated upon miniature chairs fit only for a toddler \u2014 or, perhaps, spirits who scarcely need a physical seat, just an invitation to rest. These scavenged items are characteristic of Saar\u2019s found object assemblage; she hunts for her materials, whether in nature or at flea markets.<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Betye Saar, \u201cDrifting Toward Twilight\u201d (2023)<\/p>\n

\u201cI like combining manufactured objects with natural objects,\u201d says the 98-year-old artist in a video<\/a> at the back of the gallery. She started collecting at four or five, she explains, but the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was a catalyzing moment. She was so overwhelmed with emotion that she could do nothing but create art, leading her to assemble one of her most famed sculptures, \u201cThe Liberation of Aunt Jemima\u201d (1972), which empowers and equips a \u201cmammy\u201d figurine with defensive weaponry.<\/p>\n

Saar is a famed Angeleno, a fixture in the city\u2019s art scene, but she was raised in Pasadena, which neighbors the Huntington Gardens, where this site-specific commission went up in 2023. In the short directed by Kyle Provencio Reingold, the camera follows her through the massive campus, where she first wandered at 12 or 13 alongside her mother and neighbor. We forage the gardens with her as she instructs the Huntington employees of her artistic intentions; you can hear the giddiness in her voice as she remembers her childhood traversing its grounds, selecting fallen branches and trimmings. \u201cEven in death, those things can be really beautiful,\u201d she muses.<\/p>\n

The gallery lighting shifts from daylight to dusk as time creeps along. Drifting Into Twilight is an encapsulated, self-sustaining environment of its own, like a display exhibit at a natural history museum with a surrealistic twist. The room is as relaxing as it is disorienting; it feels like you\u2019ve been plunged into a misty and peculiar other world. You are sinking, descending, drifting into twilight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Betye Saar, \u201cDrifting Toward Twilight\u201d (2023)<\/p>\n

Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight<\/a> continues at Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art at the Huntington (1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California) through November 30, 2027. The exhibition was curated by Yinshi Lerman-Tan and Sola Saar Agustsson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN MARINO, Calif. \u2014\u00a0Standing in the gallery of Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight, you are bathed in oceanic,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,24206,366,18,117,1176,24207,19,17,1370],"class_list":{"0":"post-30569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-betye-saar","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-featured","17":"tag-huntington-library","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-los-angeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}