History is a Weapon - Alison Saar's "Grow'd"

by Gregg Chadwick

“I spect I grow’d. Don’t think nobody ever made me.” 

- Topsy from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Alison Saar's Grow’d sits majestically in L.A. Louver’s open-air Skyroom. Last night, I was privileged to chat with Ms. Saar about her life and work in front of her haunting bronze sculpture. Saar has reimagined Topsy as a strong, fully aware woman. The cotton bale that she sits on has become a throne. And the sickle in her hand has become a harbinger of justice to come. Cotton stalks tied to her hair float like a firmament of earthly stars. 

Alison Saar
Grow'd
2019 / cast bronze / 78 1/2 x 39 x 38 3/4 in. (199.4 x 99.1 x 98.4 cm)
L.A. Louver - June 5, 2019
(photo by Gregg Chadwick)

In 2017-18, Saar created a body of artwork featured in a 2018 solo show at L.A. Louver centered around the character of Topsy. Saar's exhibition entitled Topsy Turvy dove headfirst into the legacy of slavery in America. Douglas Messerli wrote, " Topsy becomes a black heroine threatening patriarchal ideas and seriously challenging male privilege—in short setting the world, as the show’s title suggests, Topsy Turvy." 

Saar said to us last night at L.A. Louver that she considers Topsy Turvy an angry show. 
I replied - echoing Spike Lee's 1619 hat - "400 years of built up anger." In 1619 the first enslaved people stolen from Africa were brought to colonial Virginia. Saar's artwork digs into this painful American origin story and brings to light the literal skeletons buried in our soil. For Saar, her artwork summons the collected rage and frustration of our current time. Saar references poet and activist Audre Lorde: 

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time… I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

Spike Lee

1619

Saar said that she sees her latest sculpture Grow'd as a hopeful artwork that takes Topsy to a new place. The naïve enslaved girl has grown into a regal presence. She is now in control of her own destiny. Looking at Grow'd I am reminded of Tomi Adeyemi's recent novel Children of Blood and Bone. Shammara Lawrence in Teen Vogue describes Adeyemi's book as a "tale of triumph, that chronicles the journey of Zélie Adebola, a powerful young woman fighting to return magic to her people in the land of Orïsha after it was eradicated by a ruthless king, hell-bent on wiping them out completely." Both Zélie and Topsy fight back against injustice.  

Alison Saar
Grow'd
2019 / cast bronze / 78 1/2 x 39 x 38 3/4 in. (199.4 x 99.1 x 98.4 cm)
L.A. Louver - June 5, 2019
(photo by Gregg Chadwick)

Saar in her artwork takes back forms and stories from African art that were appropriated by Picasso and his circle as they attempted to find a new path but remained trapped in their colonial history. In 2016, Saar's solo exhibit at L.A. Louver Silt, Soot and Smut struck a deep chord with art writer Christopher Knight. He wrote Saar "reminds us that European Modern art in the early 20th century is unthinkable without its profound, complex relationship to Africa. She brings artistic diaspora into play." 

I agree with Christopher Knight that "Saar has been making exceptional work for quite some time. A full museum retrospective is overdue."

Alison Saar's Grow'd is on exhibit at L.A. Louver through June 8, 2019.

L.A. Louver

45 North Venice Boulevard

Venice, California 90291

T: 310.822.4955

F: 310.821.7529

info@lalouver.com

Alison Saar
L.A. Louver - June 5, 2019
(photo by Gregg Chadwick)