Cover for Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami)
Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight
Rarely seen installation works that exemplify this pioneering artist’s critical focus on Black identity and Black feminism
Edited with text by Stephanie Seidel. Foreword by Alex Gartenfeld. Text by Sampada Aranke, Edwidge Danticat. Interview by Leah Ollman
Designed by Chad Kloepfer
Published 2022 | ISBN: 9781636810362

Showcasing a lesser-known aspect of Saar’s art, Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight provides new insights into her explorations of ritual, spirituality and cosmologies, as well as themes of the African diaspora. Featured here are significant installations created by Saar from 1980 to 1998, including Oasis (1984), a work that will be reconfigured at ICA Miami’s Saar exhibition for the first time in more than 30 years.
With compelling scholarship and rich illustration—combining new installation photography and archival material—the monograph provides a fresh look at this significant artist’s critical and influential practice. Betye Saar: Serious Moonlightreinforces and celebrates Saar’s standing as a visionary artist, storyteller and mythmaker, and the ongoing significance and relevance of her work to the most pressing issues in America today.