musings after Asawa
I will certainly miss some complexity in my summation of Ruth Asawa's intention with her incredible sculptures, but here goes: she was searching for a way to show that the inside and outside are just different sides of the same line. And her wire sculptures do that in a way that reveals how closely truth and beauty are related. Seeing her retrospective recently at MoMA truly took my breath away. I'm not sure a photograph could possibly do her justice, but... It seems like she must be speaking about so much more than a line. Don't you think? When do you really feel like the inside and your outside or your line--your life--are in perfect sychronicity? Is this something within our control? Or is it beyond any kind of choice? Are the curves that we present to the world a perfect inverse of the ones that are hidden? And is the work of a life recognizing that? Finding those places where the outer and the inner are holding each other's shape, clinging to their respective curve...
