19 Oct 2025 – 07 Feb 2026
New York City, USA
moma.org
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‘I’m not so interested in the expression of something. I’m more interested in what the material can do,’ said Ruth Asawa, whose six-decade career is celebrated in Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective at MoMA. Gathering nearly 300 works across mediums — wire and bronze sculptures, drawings, prints, and public commissions — the exhibition traces the artist’s lifelong fascination with material transformation and spatial tension.
From her early studies at Black Mountain College to her San Francisco studio, Asawa pursued the possibilities of humble materials like paper and wire, creating forms that merge abstraction and representation.
Deeply committed to community and arts education, she approached making as an extension of living, seeing creativity in every act. This retrospective honors that vision, inviting viewers to experience the quiet radicalism of an artist who found infinite variation in the simplest of means.
designboom has received this project from our event submissions feature, see more here.