"Alison Saar on Transforming Outrage Into Art," by Jori Finkel, The New York Times
Ahead of her biggest exhibition to date, the sculptor talks about Black Panther imagery, the goddess Yemoja and her own quest to balance anger and beauty.
Alison Saar likes to make sculptures of strong Black women standing their ground: broad shoulders, wide stance, unmovable in their convictions. She made a bronze monument of Harriet Tubman that presides over a traffic island at 122nd Street in Harlem. She created a small army of enslaved girls turned warriors, inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s character Topsy for a major gallery show in Los Angeles. And now Ms. Saar, 64, has a new public sculpture on the Pomona College campus, commissioned by the Benton Museum of Art there: “Imbue,” a 12-foot-tall bronze evoking the Yoruba goddess Yemoja.
“Imbue” accompanies her biggest museum survey yet, “Of Aether and Earthe,” which will be held in two venues: the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, which plans to open its section in January; and the Benton, in Claremont, Calif., where her show is installed and ready to open when the state’s coronavirus guidelines allow. Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with the artist about her new show and ongoing obsessions.