Overview

Gallery 4 - National and International Exhibitions, 1950s, is a large rectangular room with two clusters of sculptures, jutting out from the walls, one cluster in the center of the room and artwork along the four walls.

We enter Gallery 4 in the back right corner of the room. In this gallery there are four described artworks. As we enter the gallery on our right, there is a 2D artwork on the wall, in the middle of the gallery is a cluster of six looped-wire metal sculptures hanging above a low round plinth, two of which are described, and on jutting out from the left wall is a cluster of three looped-wire sculptures, hanging above a low round plinth.

The exit to Gallery 5 is on the same wall as the door we came in through, in the back left corner of the room.

Wall Text

National and International Exhibitions, 1950s

In the 1950s Asawa received increasing attention nationally and internationally. Her sculptures were exhibited in San Francisco, New York, and abroad and appeared in magazines dedicated to art, design, and fashion, from Time and Vogue to Art News. Asawa compared her work with wire to the process of drawing and developed a range of open and closed forms inspired by nature and geometry.

Many of the works seen here were featured in Asawa’s 1950s solo shows at Peridot Gallery, New York, and in major international exhibitions. She built on early experiments to introduce new shapes and multilayered forms, explaining in 1955 that she used her looped-wire technique to make “sculpture that would itself have a form and volume, whose silhouette would also have volume, and sculptures whose shadow would have volume.” Working with the limitations of the gallery’s seven-foot ceilings, Asawa hung her sculptures at varying heights to highlight their transparency. As she wrote for her 1954 Peridot show: “A continuous piece of wire, forms envelop inner forms, yet all forms are visible (transp.). The shadow will reveal an exact image of the object.”

Image

Caption

Asawa at the opening of her solo exhibition at Peridot Gallery, New York, 1954
Courtesy BMC Project Collection, Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolia, Asheville, North Carolina

Description

A black and white photograph featuring five people with light skin tone standing in an art gallery with three suspended looped-wire sculptures. Asawa, a Japanese American woman, stands in the center of the photo, her hands on her hips talking to another person holding a drink. In the background, people mill about in conversation, looking at the sculptures. The light in the gallery is bright making the wire mesh multi-lobed sculptures almost translucent and hard to make out.

Objects

Untitled (S.026, Hanging Three-Lobed Continuous Form with Penetrating Cones within Each Lobe)

Label Text

ca. 1955
Enameled copper and brass wire
Collection of Holly Johnson and Parker Harris

Visual Description

A hanging vertical looped-wire sculpture composed of three connected bulbous orbs. The entire sculpture is formed by delicate, looped wire creating a see-through, net-like texture. Inside each of the three organic spheres are smaller looped-wire sculptures made from two vertical cones penetrating each other through the tip. The main body of the sculpture and two internal cones are a dark grey, while the top cone is made of a brighter and lighter copper wire. The entire sculpture is about the size of a standard floor lamp.

Untitled (S.395, Hanging Asymmetrical Twenty-Three Interlocking Bubbles)

Label Text

ca. 1955
Brass, galvanized steel, steel, bronze, and copper wire
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Frank B. Bemis Fund, 2024

Visual Description

A suspended cluster of interconnected looped-wire spheres. The overall arrangement resembles an abstract, organic form, about the size of foot stool. The 23 bubble like spheres vary in size and are composed of overlapping small, looped metal wire, giving them a semi-transparent appearance with areas of more density casting subtle shadows. The many different types of wire used create slight variations of grey with a few pops of brighter copper lobes throughout.

Untitled (ZP.17F, Nine Looped-Wire Sculptural Forms)

Label Text

mid-to-late 1950s
Screentone on matboard
Private collection

Visual Description

A screentone of a collection of grey tone geometric abstract shapes arranged on a cream-colored background. A screentone is a visual technique used to create depth and shading, rendered here by applying cutout adhesive sheets that are covered in repeating patterns of tiny dots and lines. The print is about the size of a large baking tray. The nine designs are composed of various overlapping symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes with varying levels of transparency and density throughout the composition. On our left, layers of overlapping hourglass shaped structures create an undulating form. On our far right, a vertical sequence of leaf-like shapes appears beside a series of stacked linked triangles.

Untitled (S.633a-c, Hanging Group of Three Reversible, Open-Window Forms [Seven Tiers, Six Tiers, Five Tiers])

Label Text

ca. 1956
Sterling silver wire
Private collection, Beverly Hills

This delicate trio of hanging forms was shown in Asawa’s 1956 exhibition at Peridot Gallery, New York. One of just a few sculptures designed to be installed together, it includes what Asawa called an “open window,” an element she first created by accident when cutting a lobe of one of her wire forms open for a repair, causing the surface to unfurl. By 1954 she had begun to achieve a similar effect by using tension to force flat planes into intricate outward curves—as seen here.

Visual Description

Three vertical looped-wire sculptures resembling abstract garlands. They are varying heights with the longest about the size of a stool and the shortest being about the size of a rolling pin. Each silver sculpture is composed of a series of connected, ornate tiers resembling symetrical organic coral like forms with spiky flared edges.

Getting to the Next Gallery

The exit to Gallery 5 is on the same wall as the door we came in through, in the back left corner of the room.