The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa: Contours in the Air

by Elisa Urbanelli (Primary Contributor), Jacqueline Hoefer, Karin Higa

The scope and stature of Ruth Asawa’s work are brought into brilliant focus in this superb book, created to accompany the first complete retrospective of the artist’s career. Beginning with her earliest works—drawings and paintings created in the 1940s while studying at Black Mountain College—this beautifully illustrated volume traces Asawa’s trajectory as a pioneering modernist sculptor who is recognized nationally for her wire sculpture, public commissions, and activism in education and the arts. The Sculpture of Ruth Asawa establishes the importance of Asawa’s work within the larger national context of artists who redefined art as a way of thinking and acting in the world rather than as merely a stylistic practice. A chronology and a collection of essays by noted scholars highlight Asawa’s complex relationship to American art and Asian American history and provide engrossing biographical information.

In her lifelong experimentations with wire, especially its capacity to balance open and closed forms, Asawa invented a powerful new vocabulary. Committed to enhancing the quality of daily life through art produced within the home, she contributed a unique perspective to the formal explorations of twentieth-century abstract sculpture. Working in a variety of non-traditional media, Asawa performed a series of uncanny metamorphoses, leading viewers into a deeper awareness of natural forms by revealing their structural properties. Through her artistic practice, Asawa reconnects with the Buddhist ethos of her parents, transforming the commonplace into metaphors for life processes themselves.

Essays by Daniell Cornell, Emily Doman, Mary Emma Harris, Karin Higa, Jacqueline Hoefer, John Kriedler, Susan Stauter, and Sally Woodbridge
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 2006

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an excellent expansion on the more straight-forward biography of Asawa I read last month. This appreciation of Asawa's work includes several essays -- a couple focusing on her artistic development, a couple on the contemporary critical reception to her work, a couple of her later-in-life art education activism

I learned a lot reading the essays about the racist and sexist response to Asawa's art. About how so much of criticism is concerns labeling and type-casting in order to describe the meaning in a work. And about the true strength of the artist who can push aside that inequity and focus on making a representation of her ideas. And making beauty.

This book includes many many fabulous photo of Asawa's works. I'm especially taken with the photographs of the installation at San Francisco's De Young Museum -- and how Asawa's hanging sculptures take on a different life with shadow-play.

[Carolyn Halliday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone shared with me an image of Ruth Asawa's work some years ago because my work knit wire sculptures reminded them of Asawa's looped wire sculptures. At the time, she was not known to me or my circle of artists. Then in 2007 while at the De Young Museum, I was thrilled to discover that the new addition lobby was animated with an installation of Ruth Asawa's sculptures. A long time resident of San Francisco, and as I learned from this wonderful book, Asawa was a lifetime arts advocate in California, particularly advocating for children's arts programs where she taught most of her life. This book which also serves as a comprehensive catalog of much of her work was published in connection with the De Young Museum exhibit. I think I actually bought the book just a couple of years ago when I was at the David Zwirner retrospective of her work in Manhattan. And I just started reading the book a couple of weeks ago, even though it has long been winking at me from my messy shelves of art books.

A compendium of her life which includes interviews between her and her architect husband for the Smithsonian archives, essays on the critique of her work, her life at Black Mountain, her impact on arts education, and more, this book makes for an in-depth and interesting read about how this artist was shaped as she lived her humble life which was dedicated to her art, even as she raised six children. Also included are quality prints and photographs of all genres of her work---the well know sculptures of course but also paintings, drawings, and prints. I was taken with her pen drawings, which carry the feel of her wire sculptures.

I have not read the second edition of this publication, nor have I read the 2019 book about Asawa written by Tamara Schenkenberg, but I would be surprised to find a much more comprehensive detailing of this artist's life than is in this book.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1973, when I first started working at the San Francisco Museum of Art, a Ruth Asawa retrospective was on view. It was my first look at this artist's work, and the beauty and strength of the forms are something which have remained in my mind. This was also the year where the baker's clay fountain she organized was installed at the Hyatt Hotel on Union Square. It was fun to look at the depictions of the various neighborhood scenes created by children on the side of the fountain.

This book is the catalogue for Asawa's retrospective exhibition at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in 2006. It chronicles her life before she started making art work, and goes into depth regarding her studies at Black Mountain College with Josef Albers and Buckminster Fuller, among others. This is the first book where I've understood what was happening at Black Mountain College and what made it so unique. It made a huge impact on Asawa and not only her art practice, but her daily way of living.

It was also wonderful to read essays about her community involvement, and especially the essay by John Kreidler, who goes into detail about the CETA project.

Raising a family and making art a part of community living through art education by artists were also important parts of Asawa's life. She had a singular way of working, which she kept refining during her lifetime.

The USPS has released a Ruth Asawa stamp. This is a small step in creating awareness of Asawa and her work.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, reading and looking at this book doesn't produce the delight of seeing multiple sculptures in each of several rooms at the exhibition does for me, but there are many good photos of the art included. What makes this book so special is that it includes an enlightening biography of Asawa as person and as artist. It really helps explain the art, although I enjoy her work even without explanation, and offers more detail than can be learned by reading the various blurbs at the museum accompanying the works.

[Giles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Asawa's story is an amazing tale of 20th century American life, from early california, to Japanese internment camps, to midwest progressivism, to Black Mountain College experimentalism, and back to california to be super cool San Fran artist bohemians and community builders. her paintings were really good, and there is cool pictures of her dancing too. then of course the woven stuff and her house with architect husband...oh, and she had five kids.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really read it, but I did like seeing Asawa's art work.

[Jean Ni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible collection of images that show a wide range of Ruth Asawa’s work - love the electroplated copper wire pieces and her BMC drawings