Phyllis Kind Gallery - Exhibitions

Phyllis Kind Gallery is honored to announce the upcoming exhibition, Alison Saar: Lost/Found: new sculpture and works on paper.

Little Sally Walker sitting in a saucer, Rise Sally Rise wipe your weeping eyes, put your hands on your hips and let your back bone slip. Shake it to the East, shake it to the West, shake it to the one that you love best.

The exhibition Lost/Found, addresses issues of change; what is lost from the past and what will be found in the future. It is about transitions, her daughter moving into adolescence her son's pre-adolescence and the artist's own life changes. Rise Sally Rise, depicts an adolescent girl sitting in a child's chair too small for her developing body. The chair hangs on the wall in limbo and her long tangled hair cascades towards the floor entangled with bottles. Lost and Found, depicts two adult women seated nine feet apart each in a child's chair. Their faces are concealed and they are joined to each other by their hair. The piece addresses an unperceivable transition and alludes to madness. Another work in the exhibit is Janus, two female heads joined at the neck looking away from each other. It is based on the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings and the end of things as well as war and peace. The work also relates to the traditional African Janus masks that have two heads facing opposite directions, the piece has a Nkisi nail fetish on one of the faces. The piece is about war, anger and losing face.

Alison Saar has long been intrigued with hair as a signifier. The social complexities depicted in Black hairstyles and the way they are perceived both inside and outside the community and their African roots. Mammy's Whamny, is a small infant's night gown knitted from gray and black Afro-American hair. It speaks to the plight of black woman who often leave their own children in order to care for the children of others and their bittersweet relationship.

Recently Alison Saar had a solo exhibition at Jaffe-Friede & Strauss Galleries, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, and also at the Springfield Art Museum, Missouri.

Public collections: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, High Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art.