Betye Saar
In conjunction with Betye Saar’s Mojotech exhibition for Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide, Roberts Projects will hold a panel discussion on the intersections between gender, art and technology that have emerged over the last five decades. The title Dear Genius is taken from a letter sent to Betye Saar by her friend, Dr. Helen Anderson, when Mojotech opened at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center in 1987.
How have recent feminist movements influenced—and been influenced by—the digital revolution? Can technology bring us closer to a world free from gender-based discrimination? And what does a female tech-genius look like? Coming together from different artistic and research fields, these panelists will discuss the ways they have used technology in their own creative practices, the very real challenges it presents and the rich potential it embodies for the future.
Panelists are Nancy Baker Cahill, Sarah Rosalena and Mindy Seu, with Jori Finkel as moderator.
The conversation will be open to the public with Betye Saar in attendance. On view during the event will be additional artworks by Saar that demonstrate her longstanding interest in using technological components in her practice.
To RSVP for the panel discussion, click here. Additional seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the Panelists
Nancy Baker Cahill is an interdisciplinary artist and expanded filmmaker whose hybrid practice focuses on systemic power, consciousness and the human body through ecological thinking. She creates research-based immersive experiences, video installations and conceptual blockchain projects rooted in the history of drawing. Her monumental augmented reality (AR) artworks extend the lineage of land art, highlighting a desire for equitable futures. Baker Cahill is Founder and Artistic Director of 4th Wall, a free AR public art platform that explores site interventions, resistance and inclusive creative expression.
Sarah Rosalena (Wixárika) is an interdisciplinary artist working between traditional craft techniques and emerging technology. She is an Assistant Professor of Art in Computational Craft and Haptic Media at UC Santa Barbara. Rosalena has six upcoming exhibitions with Getty’s PST ART at LACMA, Hammer Museum, REDCAT, the Armory Center for the Arts, OxyArts and MCASB. Recent awards include the Artadia Award, Creative Capital Award and the LACMA Art + Tech Lab Grant. Rosalena’s work is in the permanent collection at LACMA, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art.
Mindy Seu’s expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures and design commissions. Her ongoing project Cyberfeminism Index—which gathers three decades of online activism and net art—was commissioned by Rhizome, presented at the New Museum and awarded the Graham Foundation Grant. She holds an M.Des. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Design Media Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. Seu was formerly an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and a Critic at Yale School of Art. She is currently an Associate Professor at University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Design Media Arts.
Jori Finkel writes about art for The New York Times and The Art Newspaper with particular attention to gender issues. In 2018 she developed for PBS the Emmy-nominated documentary Artist and Mother. Her 2019 book It Speaks to Me: Art that Inspires Artists (Prestel) was called “an argument for why art museums matter” by New York magazine. She lectures regularly at museums and art fairs and appears on broadcasts and podcasts as part of her larger project of making contemporary art more accessible. She won the 2023 Rabkin Prize for excellence in cultural journalism.
About Betye Saar
Betye Saar received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1949, with graduate studies at California State University at Long Beach, the University of Southern California and California State University at Northridge. Saar holds 6 honorary doctorates from California Institute of the Arts; Otis College of Art & Design; California College of Arts and Crafts; San Francisco Art Institute; Massachusetts College of Art; Cornish College of the Arts; and over 37 honors including two National Endowment for the Arts (1974, 1984); Studio Museum in Harlem (1989); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019); Academy of Arts and Letters (2021). She has received 5 Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Congressional Black Caucus (2008); California African American Museum (2011); Edward McDowell Medal (2014); Museum of the African Diaspora (2017); and International Sculpture Center (2019).
Saar’s work is in over 80 museum collections including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; National Gallery of Art; Studio Museum in Harlem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2018, the Museum of Modern Art acquired 42 important early works, making their holdings the largest public collection of Saar’s artwork.
Since 1961, Saar has been represented in over 900 exhibitions. Current exhibitions include: Spirit & Strength: Modern Art from Haiti, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (September 29, 2024 – March 9, 2025); Edges of Ailey, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (September 25, 2024 – February 9, 2025); Toward the Celestial: ICA Miami’s Collection at 10 Years, ICA Miami, FL (May 3 – November 1, 2024); Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA (November 11, 2023 – November 25, 2025); Tender Loving Care, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (July 22, 2023 – July 28, 2025); Dream On, Bonnefantan, Masstricht, The Netherlands (June 6, 2024 – June 30, 2025); In the Making: Contemporary Art at SBMA, Santa Barbara Art Museum, Santa Barbara, CA (July 21, 2024 – March 9, 2025); Betye Saar: Atlas | The Alpha and the Omega, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2021 – present). Recent exhibitions include: Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (October 25, 2023 – February 26, 2024); Entangled Pasts: 1768 – Now, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (February 3 - April 28, 2024); Mapping an Art World: Los Angeles in the 1970s-80s, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (June 18, 2023 – Mar 17, 2024); Cooking Cleaning Caring: Care Work in the Arts since 1960, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany (October 22, 2023 – March 03, 2024); Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner – Spirit Movers, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (November 18, 2023 – April 7, 2024) and Groove: Artists and Intaglio Prints, 1500 to Now, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (December 16, 2023 – June 16, 2024).
The Betye Saar Catalogue Raisonné Project was established in 2016 to preserve Saar’s artistic practice and educate future generations about her significant contributions to American art history. For additional information, please visit betyesaarcatalogueraisonne.org
PST ART: Art and Science Collide
Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 818 artists, 50 exhibitions and 1 mind-blowing theme: Art & Science Collide. In partnership with museums and institutions across the region, this is one of the most expansive art events in the world. This “collision” will explore the intersections of Art and Science, both past and present, with diverse organizations activating exhibitions on topics like ancient cosmologies, Indigenous sci-fi, environmental justice and artificial intelligence.
