ONLINE PROGRAM

Women Making Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s

Danielle O’Steen, independent curator and art historian

This lecture focuses on four women artists coming up in the 1960s and 1970s - Ruth Asawa, Lee Bontecou, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Eva Hesse - whose artworks fundamentally shifted the field of sculpture. The artists expanded their studio practices into new and unlikely territories, drawing from a wide range of materials, sources, and collaborators. This talk considers the individual and innovative contributions of these four women in the context of an experimental moment in American art history.

The objects the artists made offer a fantastical and captivating cast of characters, from Lee Bontecou’s wall-mounted assemblages in steel and fabric and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s monoliths in cast bronze and fibers to Eva Hesse’s absurdist abstractions in fiberglass and latex and Ruth Asawa’s otherworldly creations in iron, copper, and brass wire. The lecture will look closely at the artists’ methods of making their artworks as well as how they impacted the terrain of sculpture.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)