Ruth Asawa’s Time in Mexico
George Biddle, War and Peace, 1942–1945. Mural inside the Supreme Court of Mexico. This is mural that Ruth Asawa learned to prepare and apply paster for while on her first trip to Mexico.
Shortly after I read my friend Alex Paik published an article on Hyperallergic on Ruth Asawa, I became more interested in understanding her as an artist of color who developed her artwork in the post-World War II era. Although I set the post-1960s-90s as my research focus for the artist I researched in Documents of Resistance, the history before has always held my interest. I hadn't known about her work outside its formal settings and lineage until I read the line where he mentioned that Ruth Asawa had learned the looped-wire technique for which she is known. Knowing that other artists of color were going to Mexico around that time, like Elizabeth Catlett in 1946, I slowly gravitated to read more about that influential and possibly career-changing moment in Mexico.
I continue to research when I can. Honestly, between my current research into Indigenous Solidarity and the development of new video segments on deep time in The Same Sun /Calendar, I am a little overstretched. I hope a research fellowship will free up some time for me in the future. Until then, I'll just have to keep chipping away at this history that remains to be told.