Context brings the brightest minds to your living room with perspective-shifting online lectures.

Between Art and Activism: Sculptor Ruth Asawa and Geometric Choreography with Dr. Jennie Hirsh
Learn with Jennie Hirsh

Between Art and Activism: Sculptor Ruth Asawa and Geometric Choreography with Dr. Jennie Hirsh

No events are scheduled at this time. Want to be notified when it’s back? Click the blue button to the right and we’ll notify you.

Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

This seminar looks at the life and work of Japanese American sculptor and arts education advocate Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) whose enigmatic and elegant wire sculptures have attracted an increasing amount of widespread critical attention as well as mainstream recognition, having been featured on a series of U.S. postage stamps in 2020. At the same time, we will explore the much anticipated exhibition Ruth Asawa Through Line, which was co-organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City that will host it from September 2023 to January 2024 before traveling the show to the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston.

In this conversation, we will explore the evolution of Asawa's sculptural practice, retracing her educational training, first in the art education program at Milwaukee State Teachers College and then at the experimental Black Mountain College. Mentored by luminaries such as Joseph Albers, Buckminster Fuller, and Jacob Lawrence, there she discovered the impact of drawing and lines, as well as the potential of unexpected processes and materials, honing the methods and skills that would inform her inimitable works in paper, wire thread, and bronze. In this contextualized reading of her abstract as well as figurative sculptural work, we will explore her advocacy for and leadership within arts education as well.

Led by an expert on modern and contemporary art, Jennie Hirsh, this interactive seminar will provide an introduction as well to the complicated challenges that Asawa faced against the landscape of xenophobia and persecution toward Asian Americans at the time of World War II. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased enthusiasm for visiting works by Asawa as well as the growing number of exhibitions and collections celebrating her incredible legacy.

Image courtesy of The De Young Museum, Untitled (1955), Ruth Asawa

Jennie Hirsh (Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College) is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Columbia Universities, as well as pre-doctoral fellowships from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Wolfsonian FIU. Hirsh has authored essays on artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Yinka Shonibare, and Regina Silveira, and is co-editor, with Isabelle Wallace, of Contemporary Art and Classical Myth (Ashgate 2011).

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 6 reviews
100%
(6)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
B
B.K. (San Antonio, US)
very enlightening

Guest did not leave comment

A
Anonymous (Los Altos, US)
Fantastic class

Dr. Hirsh is a very engaging speaker. I very much enjoyed this presentation on Ruth Asawa. She spoke about Ruth's life and how it was reflected in her work. Beautiful images and stories to match!

S
Soledad Salame (Baltimore, US)
Fascinating lecture of Ruth Asawa , by Dr. Jennie Hirsh

This lecture was so beautifully narrated by Dr.Jennie Hirsh that I got tickets to see the show in NYC, @ The Whitney.

D
Donna Lanen (San Diego, US)
Ruth Asawa Artist

A wonderful lecture on the life and art of Ruth Asawa. Her art was so varied, but her core principles remained the same throughout her life. I loved that she was an advocate of arts education. She was a multi-faceted woman, balancing her domestic life while continuing to seamlessly produce and show her art. Jennie Hirsh used a mix of text, photo's and short film to bring it all to life. Wonderful lecture. I'm now inspired to learn more about Ruth Asawa, a great American artist.

L
Len Radin (Leeds, US)
Dr. Hirsh is great.

My wife and I found Dr. Hirsh to be knowledgeable, personable, and a fine speaker.

12

Customer Reviews

Based on 6 reviews
100%
(6)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
B
B.K. (San Antonio, US)
very enlightening

Guest did not leave comment

A
Anonymous (Los Altos, US)
Fantastic class

Dr. Hirsh is a very engaging speaker. I very much enjoyed this presentation on Ruth Asawa. She spoke about Ruth's life and how it was reflected in her work. Beautiful images and stories to match!

S
Soledad Salame (Baltimore, US)
Fascinating lecture of Ruth Asawa , by Dr. Jennie Hirsh

This lecture was so beautifully narrated by Dr.Jennie Hirsh that I got tickets to see the show in NYC, @ The Whitney.

D
Donna Lanen (San Diego, US)
Ruth Asawa Artist

A wonderful lecture on the life and art of Ruth Asawa. Her art was so varied, but her core principles remained the same throughout her life. I loved that she was an advocate of arts education. She was a multi-faceted woman, balancing her domestic life while continuing to seamlessly produce and show her art. Jennie Hirsh used a mix of text, photo's and short film to bring it all to life. Wonderful lecture. I'm now inspired to learn more about Ruth Asawa, a great American artist.

L
Len Radin (Leeds, US)
Dr. Hirsh is great.

My wife and I found Dr. Hirsh to be knowledgeable, personable, and a fine speaker.

12