Ruth Asawa: A Life of Artistic Innovation 🎨

Discover Ruth Asawa, one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century, and the enduring legacy of her radical and unflagging experiments with materials and form. We visit Asawa’s San Francisco home and garden and bring together rare archival footage and photographs to show how her art, daily life, and commitment to community were inseparable.

The video traces Asawa's biography from her childhood in a family of Japanese immigrant farmers, to her incarceration during World War II, to her transformative education at Black Mountain College, and her prolific career and later life in San Francisco. Learn how she developed her groundbreaking looped wire sculptures that redefined modern sculpture by suspending it in space, and found endless inspiration in nature’s forms. The video also highlights Asawa’s role as an educator and activist, including her founding of the Alvarado Arts Workshop and her lasting impact on public arts education in California.

Through family memories, a curatorial interview, and Asawa’s own words, this documentary reveals an artist who believed that “every minute that we’re attached to this earth, we should be doing something.”

0:00–1:32 Intro to Ruth Asawa
1:32–2:46 Biography and incarceration
2:46–4:41 Black Mountain College
4:41–7:10 Beginning of looped wire sculpture
7:10–8:34 Evolving her sculptural forms
8:34–9:27 Impact on her children
9:27–12:16 Community and public works
12:16–14:00 Inspired by nature
14:00–15:58 Plant drawings

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The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist.

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