Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight

The exhibition “Serious Moonlight” brings together a selection of immersive installations by the American artist Betye Saar (born 1926 in Los Angeles). Rarely exhibited until now, they reveal the way the artist seizes the evocative power of found objects. Invoking Black identity and intersectional feminism in the context of the American West Coast, her installations reveal to visitors singular worlds inspired by rituals and spiritual practices.

Betye Saar‘s installations are rich in narrative and inspired by her travels (Haiti, Mexico, Nigeria) during the 1970s.

The exhibition highlights works that evoke spirituality, referring to elements of voodoo culture, astrology or palmistry. It also highlights the links between magic and technology or invokes mourning and the stages of life, such as the passage between life and death. If the intimate-scale assemblages produced by Betye Saar in the 1960s and 1970s are now considered emblematic of Black feminist art, the same cannot be said of her monumental installations. These are now being rediscovered and exhibited for the first time in a long time. The history of the African diaspora inspires Betye Saar to create dense and vibrant forms that have played an influential role since their creation.

With Serious Moonlight 49 Nord 6 Est continues its exploration of visual languages nourished by diasporas, questioning Western canons and the stories that carry them.