Ruth Aiko Asawa, born in 1926, was a sculptor primarily working with wire to create abstract forms. During her earlier years, Asawa and her family faced hostility and adverse reactions often due to their Japanese heritage and the discrimination that the second World War cultivated in America at the time. Despite changes that occurred due to the recent war and how it may affect her social and professional life, as she and many others of Japanese heritage were often in danger of violence, Asawa was able to both study and find work within the education sector. Much of her experiences learning and teaching art had shaped not only her creations but her beliefs and actions as well.
Asawa’s work and presence in the art world can be observed through the lens of the female and ethnic experience, as she along with many others was subject to a number of prejudices and disparities that were direct results of the patriarchal hierarchy present during the time of her career. Additionally, craft and art were often segregated based on a class distinction ever since the 20th century, which created further obstacles within an already highly competitive and judgemental art industry. Binary limits were also largely established and promoted during Asaw’s lifetime, the ongoing argument between a woman’s leanings towards domesticity, children, or her career were prevalent as well. Certain academics may have even classified her occupation to be largely affected by a string of insecure positions of being marginalized for her gender, heritage, and being a housewife which categorized her work as ‘interpretive labor’. This term refers to art or work done by the less powerful as a form of accommodation for the more powerful. Despite this, or as a result, Asawa’s art was anything but interpretive labor.
Her interview ‘oral history interview with Ruth Asawa and Albert Lanier’ was conducted by Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (Asawa, 2002). The interview’s focus is on the concept of modernism, as many have interpreted Asawa’s work as being modernist in nature. Though the interview may not have intended it, it allowed Asawa to illustrate ways in which modernity passes, even in an art form that is categorized so distinctly. The interviewer is able to extract recollections of how art education existed during Asawa and her husband’s past. Karlstrom asks Asawa about her family’s presence within her work process and her art, to which she explains that it is her interpretation of the natural connection of the two things in her own life. The interview subject is a woman and while the interview has a familiar tone, it offers respect and curiosity regarding Asawa’s work that is expected when discussing important and art. A few other mentions of women are usually between the men, in a comical moment, Lanier recites a story in which a woman describes pieces of chicken as body parts of other specific moments, which may be interpreted as both humorous and disrespectful. The most important references to women are done by Asawa in relation to her mother, as the connection between the source of her ideology of hands-on work and her childhood becomes easily visible. While Asawa’s reaction to adversity regarding both her ethnicity and gender may seem outdated to some, it is a very vital interpretation of the female experience, with her choice to let her artwork affect her family life, as much as they had affected it. As such, it can also be a perspective of balance in a time made difficult possibly due to gender disparities.
Work Cited
Asawa, R. Oral history interview with Ruth Asawa and Albert Lanier, 2002 [Interview]. Archive of American Art, Smithsonian. Web.