Betye Saar - Keepin' It Clean

Catalogue for Betye Saar's 2017 exhibition, Keepin' It Clean, at CAFAM (Craft Contemporary).

Keepin’ It Clean is a survey of Betye Saar’s washboard assemblages, a significant series she began in 1997. For Saar, the washboard is an incredibly potent object, symbolizing the intersection of race, gender, class, and labor in the United States; it is an emblem of America’s unresolved legacy of slave labor and the systems of racial oppression that continue to afflict the country. Throughout her career, Saar has worked to expose the history of these oppressive systems and the ongoing racial stereotypes they perpetuate. Saar continues to ask, “America, will you ever clean up your act?”

Craft & Folk Art Museum, 2017, softcover, 8 x 11.5 in, 50 pages.