Still Tickin’: Betye Saar, Ageing and Assemblage

Abstract

Focusing on works by contemporary African-American artist Betye Saar, this paper suggests that in repurposing her great-aunt's possessions Saar revaluates the worth of objects accumulated through ageing. The method of assemblage, which focuses on recycling waste objects and collapsing spatial and temporal boundaries, is in dialogue with the way in which cultural gerontologists are rethinking approaches to waste, decline and experiences of time. In Saar's ‘family shrines’ she memorializes the long life of her great-aunt Hattie Parson Keyes and, in doing so, opens up new avenues of interpretation for Hattie's belongings. As a nonagenarian, Saar's work is receiving renewed interest in the contemporary art world and the latter half of the paper ends on a discussion of Saar's solo show Still Tickin’ (2015). The exhibition used Saar's assemblagist eye to radially rethink the retrospective not as linear progression but as cyclical, thematic and unbeholden to ‘the end’.