But the meander is also a decorative pattern of repeated sharp turns — which makes it a good metaphor for the career of Ruth Asawa. A modernist sculptor acclaimed — perhaps mistakenly — for her work’s quietude, Asawa wove sublimely delicate hanging forms out of nested lobes of looped wire. Celebrated early — and then politely ignored — they have been increasingly visible over the past decade, with good cause. Chasing the intersection of solid form and thin air, Asawa was dedicated above all to drawing, and her works on paper are illuminated by a revelatory exhibition that opened at the Whitney Museum in New York on Sept. 16. The meander showed up early in her graphic work, in a jazzy composition from the late 1940s, its short passages of interlocking waves constructed from cut colored paper.

Source: New York Times September 20, 2023 22:01 UTC