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Lot Essay
I think that is important. That you take an ordinary material like wire and you make it, you give it a new definition. That’s all.
—Ruth Asawa
As rich in detail as it is intimate in scale, Ruth Asawa’s hanging wire sculpture Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) hails from some of the artist’s early investigations into the delicate properties of wire. Uniting an understanding of formal aesthetic with superior craftsmanship, the present work records the precise movement of the artist’s hands, each loop an individual ode to its maker. Contrary to the purpose of the gesturally inclined Abstract Expressionists who prized emotion above all else, Asawa’s sculptural practice presents a studied refinement of a centuries-old technique, thus elevating the status of woven handicraft to one defined by elegance and poise. Reminiscent of a buzzing hive, Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) swings and sways gracefully in space, casting peripatetic shadows on its surroundings as the light dances across the surface, getting lost and found again in the artist’s hand-worked spirals. Taking her cues from natural phenomena, Asawa’s interpretation is neither intentionally abstract nor figurative, existing instead in the liminal realm of ethereal shapes.
Born in California in 1926 to Japanese-American immigrant farmers, Asawa developed early in life an intimate relationship to nature. Together with her siblings, Asawa helped their parents operate the farmstead, routine machinations that wove their way seamlessly into Asawa’s mature work: “It’s very easy in a way for me to do it because it’s out of my own past,” she said, “having worked on a farm and doing many things that were repetitive, like stringing the bean pole for beans to climb up on and picking the beans and sorting the tomatoes, picking tomatoes, sowing and planting onions and gathering them. All of these things make it very logical that I would select a way of work that would be very similar to that, only done in wire instead of plants” (R. Asawa, quoted in T. Schenkenberg, “Life’s Work,” Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, exh. cat., 2019, pp. 16-17). The Asawas’ humble life, however, was sadly interrupted in 1941 when Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, resulting in widespread paranoia towards Japanese Americans and the internment of many civilians, Asawa’s family included. During her eighteen-month incarceration first at Santa Anita Racetrack and then in Arkansas, Asawa honed her drawing abilities, eventually earning a scholarship and electing to attend Milwaukee State Teachers College. Later, Asawa reflected, “I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am” (R. Asawa, via www.ruthasawa.com).
When she was prevented from completing her teaching degree due to continued hostilities against Japanese Americans in 1946, Asawa left Milwaukee for a summer session at the avant-garde Black Mountain College in North Carolina, eventually remaining for three years on scholarship. Black Mountain was becoming well-known in the arts community for its utopic, creative environment where students were invigorated by their teachers, as well as one another, resulting in an innovative curriculum. During her time at Black Mountain, Asawa’s study with renowned faculty and fellow students, including Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller, Willem de Kooning and Merce Cunningham, emboldened her to articulate a unique visual language premised on economy of form and increasingly modern design. Josef Albers in particular, himself a descendant of the Berlin shuttered Bauhaus, taught Asawa to relish experimentation with form. Thus, after traveling to Mexico one summer during her studies, she became fascinated by wire baskets constructed by a local craftsman and sought to learn how to work with the same unique material. Back at Black Mountain, she developed her art into an extension of her two-dimensional practice: “I had no intention of going into sculpture,” she said, “but found that sculpture was just an extension of drawing. … I’m primarily intrigued with… bringing another personality to wire, which is, I think, an extension of the thinking that Albers tried to teach us” (R. Asawa, quoted in T. Schenkenberg, “Life’s Work,” in Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, exh. cat., Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 2019, p. 16). At the conclusion of her time at Black Mountain, Asawa returned to her home state of California to forge strong familial and friend relationships, as well as further her artistic progress, effectively remaining out of the market limelight until recently.
As a stand-out example of the artist’s now-iconic biomorphic looped-wire sculptures, the present lot is one such story of intimacy, having been acquired directly from the artist by a local collector and passing down within the collecting family until today. An exquisite representation of the artist’s looped-wire, biomorphic forms, Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) revels in the material itself, at once malleable and rigid, bending to the artist’s will at times and spinning its own web at others. With imagery tending towards botanical configurations, Asawa carefully constructs a compelling dialectic between the industrial potential of her chosen material and the naturally occurring motif it captures: “What I was excited by was I could make a shape that was inside and outside at the same time. … You could create something… that just continuously reverses itself” (R. Asawa, quoted in A. L. Cuneo, “Interview with Ruth Asawa,” Ruth Asawa Papers, 20 October 2003, n.p.).
—Ruth Asawa
As rich in detail as it is intimate in scale, Ruth Asawa’s hanging wire sculpture Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) hails from some of the artist’s early investigations into the delicate properties of wire. Uniting an understanding of formal aesthetic with superior craftsmanship, the present work records the precise movement of the artist’s hands, each loop an individual ode to its maker. Contrary to the purpose of the gesturally inclined Abstract Expressionists who prized emotion above all else, Asawa’s sculptural practice presents a studied refinement of a centuries-old technique, thus elevating the status of woven handicraft to one defined by elegance and poise. Reminiscent of a buzzing hive, Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) swings and sways gracefully in space, casting peripatetic shadows on its surroundings as the light dances across the surface, getting lost and found again in the artist’s hand-worked spirals. Taking her cues from natural phenomena, Asawa’s interpretation is neither intentionally abstract nor figurative, existing instead in the liminal realm of ethereal shapes.
Born in California in 1926 to Japanese-American immigrant farmers, Asawa developed early in life an intimate relationship to nature. Together with her siblings, Asawa helped their parents operate the farmstead, routine machinations that wove their way seamlessly into Asawa’s mature work: “It’s very easy in a way for me to do it because it’s out of my own past,” she said, “having worked on a farm and doing many things that were repetitive, like stringing the bean pole for beans to climb up on and picking the beans and sorting the tomatoes, picking tomatoes, sowing and planting onions and gathering them. All of these things make it very logical that I would select a way of work that would be very similar to that, only done in wire instead of plants” (R. Asawa, quoted in T. Schenkenberg, “Life’s Work,” Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, exh. cat., 2019, pp. 16-17). The Asawas’ humble life, however, was sadly interrupted in 1941 when Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, resulting in widespread paranoia towards Japanese Americans and the internment of many civilians, Asawa’s family included. During her eighteen-month incarceration first at Santa Anita Racetrack and then in Arkansas, Asawa honed her drawing abilities, eventually earning a scholarship and electing to attend Milwaukee State Teachers College. Later, Asawa reflected, “I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am” (R. Asawa, via www.ruthasawa.com).
When she was prevented from completing her teaching degree due to continued hostilities against Japanese Americans in 1946, Asawa left Milwaukee for a summer session at the avant-garde Black Mountain College in North Carolina, eventually remaining for three years on scholarship. Black Mountain was becoming well-known in the arts community for its utopic, creative environment where students were invigorated by their teachers, as well as one another, resulting in an innovative curriculum. During her time at Black Mountain, Asawa’s study with renowned faculty and fellow students, including Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller, Willem de Kooning and Merce Cunningham, emboldened her to articulate a unique visual language premised on economy of form and increasingly modern design. Josef Albers in particular, himself a descendant of the Berlin shuttered Bauhaus, taught Asawa to relish experimentation with form. Thus, after traveling to Mexico one summer during her studies, she became fascinated by wire baskets constructed by a local craftsman and sought to learn how to work with the same unique material. Back at Black Mountain, she developed her art into an extension of her two-dimensional practice: “I had no intention of going into sculpture,” she said, “but found that sculpture was just an extension of drawing. … I’m primarily intrigued with… bringing another personality to wire, which is, I think, an extension of the thinking that Albers tried to teach us” (R. Asawa, quoted in T. Schenkenberg, “Life’s Work,” in Ruth Asawa: Life’s Work, exh. cat., Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 2019, p. 16). At the conclusion of her time at Black Mountain, Asawa returned to her home state of California to forge strong familial and friend relationships, as well as further her artistic progress, effectively remaining out of the market limelight until recently.
As a stand-out example of the artist’s now-iconic biomorphic looped-wire sculptures, the present lot is one such story of intimacy, having been acquired directly from the artist by a local collector and passing down within the collecting family until today. An exquisite representation of the artist’s looped-wire, biomorphic forms, Untitled (S.360, Hanging Single-Section, Reversible Open-Window Form) revels in the material itself, at once malleable and rigid, bending to the artist’s will at times and spinning its own web at others. With imagery tending towards botanical configurations, Asawa carefully constructs a compelling dialectic between the industrial potential of her chosen material and the naturally occurring motif it captures: “What I was excited by was I could make a shape that was inside and outside at the same time. … You could create something… that just continuously reverses itself” (R. Asawa, quoted in A. L. Cuneo, “Interview with Ruth Asawa,” Ruth Asawa Papers, 20 October 2003, n.p.).