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News Release

For immediate use 

Dec. 12, 2005 -- No. 620

Local angles: Los Angeles; Birmingham, Ala.;
Pasadena, San Jose, Calif.; State College, Pa.

Photo Note: See end of release for photo URLs.

First major exhibition by mother,
daughters created at the Ackland

CHAPEL HILL — A woman is silhouetted inside an old window, looking out, her palms pressed against the glass. Tiny panes above her face are filled with images: stars, animals, little cartoon figures in love. Peach-colored crescent moons.

This "Black Girl’s Window" is just one of 50 mixed-media works to be displayed Dec. 18 through March 26 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Ackland Art Museum in "Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar."

The Ackland Art Museum will host a variety of free public programs to accompany the exhibition, including appearances Jan 22-23 by the Los Angeles artists themselves: Betye Saar and her daughters Lezley and Alison.

Influenced by their mixed-race ancestry – African American and European with a trace of Native American – the three artists interpret family, identity, race and gender in their artwork.

"The exhibition is a rare opportunity to experience a unique phenomenon in art history: a family of artists working with similar materials and themes," said Dr. Barbara Matilsky, the Ackland’s curator of exhibitions.

"Although the Saars’ artworks reflect their individual stories and cultural histories, they also illuminate the viewer’s own sense of identity and self-understanding," she said.

Curated by Matilsky and Dr. Jessica Dallow, assistant professor of art history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, "Family Legacies" is the first large exhibition by all three artists. It spans 40 years of work, from 1964 to 2005.

Sculptures with everyday items incorporated, two-dimensional collages of varying materials, and three-dimensional assemblages – objects made from a group of objects – will be on display. There are paintings, children’s handprints, fabrics and jewelry; old photographs, embroidery, handmade paper, jewelry and clocks.

"I think people are going to be really amazed to see what you can do with everyday objects," she said.

The 3,500 square-foot exhibition features five overlapping themes:

Included is a 100 square-foot installation by the artists that was commissioned by the Ackland, "Transitions in Black and White." It is dedicated to the memory of Betye Saar’s late husband and Lezley and Alison’s father, Richard Saar (1924-2004), an art conservator.

Alison, the sculptor in the family, cast 85 bronze tears that cascade from a wall in the installation. Matilsky said: "It looks as though the wall is weeping."

Three crows carved in wood and covered with lead hang from the ceiling, two of them dangling Lezley’s large drawing and old photographs. On a ribbon threaded through the third crow’s mouth, visitors can write messages about their own loved ones who have died.

The exhibition also will be interactive for youngsters, who may create their own artworks out of objects in a children’s activity center.

As a UNC graduate student in 1999, Dallow worked at the Ackland. She wrote her dissertation on the work of Betye and Alison Saar, leading to the idea for "Family Legacies."

The two curators obtained sponsorship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Altria Group Inc. and the William Hayes Ackland Trust.

Matilsky negotiated loans from the artists, private collectors and major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Challenges included transporting all the artworks to the Ackland.

From UNC, the exhibition will travel to the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the San Jose Museum of Art and the Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 132-page scholarly catalog with 50 color illustrations, co-published by the Ackland and the University of Washington Press of Seattle and London. Essays by the curators are complemented by a biographical essay by Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh, Betye’s youngest daughter.

The Ackland, on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street, opens from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. The museum is open until 9 p.m. on the second Friday of every month. Admission is free.

For more information, call (919) 843-1611 (recorded information), (919) 966-5736 (museum office) or (919) 962-0837 (TTY), or visit www.ackland.org. For program details, call (919) 843-3676.

Events at the museum accompanying "Family Legacies," free and open to all, will include a public reception for the artists from 1:30 p.m.-5 p.m. Jan. 22, with a catalog signing from 1:30-2 p.m. A conversation with the artists will be at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 23 in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium with moderator Kirsten Mullen, founder and director of statewide literary consortium Carolina Circuit Writers.

Other events will be as follows:

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Photo Urls:

Ackland Art Museum contact: Maria Bleier, (919) 843-3675 or maria_bleier@unc.edu