iThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical GardensSan Marino
Betye Saar: Drifting Toward Twilight
Betye Saar's Huntington-commissioned site-specific installation: a 17-foot vintage wooden canoe with found objects including birdcages and antlers.
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Betye Saar bought a 1940s wooden canoe from an online sale in Florida, and it sat in her Laurel Canyon garage for years. Here it rests on oak branches cut after a storm, plus bark and palm fronds from the Huntington's grounds. Its passengers are three child-sized chairs, each holding a birdcage of antlers.
You step into a long, narrow gallery at the back of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries, chosen because it echoes the canoe's shape. Four blended blues run up the walls with silver moon phases and Saar's poem, and the light cycles from daylight to twilight to night to dawn. Hyperallergic's Jasmine Weber found it "as relaxing as it is disorienting". Saar turned down the prettiest branches the gardeners offered: "That's too beautiful. I don't want it to compete with the art."
It is one room and one work, plus a short documentary filmed in her studio. Entry is included with general admission.
Look for
The canoe's passengers
Look inside the 17-foot canoe for three child-sized chairs, each carrying a metal birdcage with a set of antlers inside.
The eye on the bow
A single painted eye on the canoe's tip watches you come in, like a talisman.
The moon wall
Four shades of blue darken toward the floor, with the moon's phases in silver and Saar's line: "The moon keeps vigil as a lone canoe drifts into a sea of tranquility."
The foraged pedestal
Under the canoe, storm-felled live oak, red twig dogwood and palm fronds from the Huntington's grounds glow in cool neon light.
The documentary
A short film shows Saar choosing branches with the botanical staff and talking about her life with her granddaughter, the show's co-curator.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Dates
- Going Solo
Skip if
You want a full exhibition: this is one room built around a single installation.
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Image credits
5
- Betye Saar: Drifting Toward TwilightCourtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
- Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved
- Charles Ross: Spectrum 14Courtesy of Getty Center
- The Egyptian Book of the DeadCourtesy of Getty Villa
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical GardensAaron Logan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 1.0