Prague-based artist Běla Kolářová (1923–2010) began experimenting with photographic techniques in the early 1960s, creating photograms and X-ray photographs that continued the Bauhaus tradition of photography as an abstract medium. Thus, for a series of photograms she called vegetages, she produced miniature “artificial negatives” by pressing natural materials into soft paraffin and using them for the exposure of the photographic paper instantaneously as “negatives.” In the late sixties Kolářová increasingly began creating assemblages out of found objects including household items such as snap fasteners, needles and safety pins. Kolářová arranged these objects according to conceptual grids, and thus they are somewhat akin to the work of Nouveaux Realistes as well as to various conceptual practices. The work she produced in this way defied the aesthetic canon of Socialist Realism, and Kolářová developed a remarkable conceptual feminist style that was all her own.

In recent years, Kolářová’s work was shown at the documenta 12 (2007), at Raven Row in London (2010) and in solo shows at the Museum Kampa in Prague (2008) and Muzeum Umění in Olomouc (2007).

Inspired by Joseph Cornell’s assemblages and Simon Rodia’s Los Angeles monuments, the Watts Towers (made from found scrap materials), Betye Saar’s work mixes surreal, symbolic imagery with a folk art aesthetic. As a participant in the robust African-American Los Angeles art scene of the 1970s, Saar appropriated characters such as Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, and other stereotypes from folk culture and advertising in her works—usually collages and assemblages. African tribal mysticism, history, memory, and nostalgia are also important for Saar. She was invited to participate in “Pacific Standard Time,” a 2011 survey of influential LA artists, for which she created Red Time, an installation of her assemblages from both past and present that explored the relationship between personal and collective history. “I’m the kind of person who recycles materials but I also recycle emotions and feelings,” she explains.

Kellie Jones, in her essay ‘To/from Los Angeles with Betye Saar’ points out that Saar’s focus on the female body, a full decade before the pre-eminence of feminist art-making in the 1970s, speaks to her force as a member of the vanguard and the visionary.

Produced on the occasion of John Chamberlain’s exhibition Skulpturen at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Köln, 10 October 1967.

This catalogue was produced in conjunction with the exhibition series Cosima Von Bonin: The Lazy Susan Series, A Rotating Exhibition 2010–2012 shown at the following venues: Cosima Von Bonin’s Far Niente, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 10 October, 2010–9 January, 2011; Cosima Von Bonin’s Bone Idle, Arnolfini, Bristol, 19 February–25 April, 2011; Cosima Von Bonin’s Zermatt! Zermatt! Z…ermattet!, MAMCO, Geneva, 8 June–18 September, 2011; Cosima Von Bonin’s Cut! Cut! Cut!, Museum Ludwig, Köln, 5 November, 2011–14 May, 2012.

Designed by Yvonne Quirmbach.

A landmark exhibition on display at the Brooklyn Museum from April 21 through September 17, 2017, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 examines the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism. It showcases the work of black women artists such as Emma Amos, Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, and Betye Saar, making it one of the first major exhibitions to highlight the voices and experiences of women of color. In so doing, it reorients conversations around race, feminism, political action, art production, and art history in this significant historical period.

The accompanying Sourcebook republishes an array of rare and little-known documents from the period by artists, writers, cultural critics, and art historians such as Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, bell hooks, Lucy R. Lippard, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Lowery Stokes Sims, Alice Walker, and Michelle Wallace. These documents include articles, manifestos, and letters from significant publications as well as interviews, some of which are reproduced in facsimile form. The Sourcebook also includes archival materials, rare ephemera, and an art-historical overview essay.