California artist Ruth Asawa’s ethereal looped wire hangings redefine the notion of sculpture as solid form. Enrolling at Black Mountain College following World War II—during which time Asawa and her family were interned in a concentration camp because of their Japanese heritage—she embraced what her teacher and lifelong friend Josef Albers called “the meander curved line.” In the 1950s she visited Toluca, Mexico, where she observed local artisans forming baskets in a mesh of interlocking loops.

Asawa’s alchemy was to apply this technique to wire, a material that had also been used by the military to build camp fences, developing a unique language of open and closed forms and beginning a lifelong journey of transforming a functional technique and modest industrial materials into poetic works of art.

Wall label, 2021.