Ruth Asawa, Aiko, September 9-14, 1965. Lithograph on Rives BFK paper. Sheet: 22 x 22 1/2 in. (55.9 x 57.2 cm). Collection UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, Hammer Museum. Gift of the UCLA Art Council.
Ruth Asawa arrived at Black Mountain College in 1946 and during her three years there she would develop a method of weaving wire first learned from Mexican craftspeople on a trip to Toluca, Mexico. In this hanging sculpture now on view, Asawa deployed wire to exploit its tactile, linear, and sculptural effects. The result is an exemplary Black Mountain object—modest, human scale, low-tech, and profoundly handmade.
Ruth Asawa, Untitled (5. 272), c. 1955. Copper and iron wire. Private collection.
Now on view: the first comprehensive museum exhibition in the United States about the experimental liberal arts college where influential artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Josef and Anni Albers, and Merce Cunningham studied and taught.
Learn more about Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957: http://bit.ly/1MsnmDF