David Zwirner, New York, Sept 13 to October 21, 2017.
I’ve spent the afternoon in a forest made of wire.
Asawa’s signature hanging sculptures, those translucent, biomorphic lobes that seem to defy gravity. They don’t feel like “sculpture” in the traditional sense; they feel like drawings that decided to stand up.
The Geometry of a Shadow
The most mesmerizing thing isn’t just the wire itself, but the shadows they cast on the white gallery walls. Because the works are looped and nested, the shadows become secondary artworks. They look like cellular structures or ghosts of the pieces themselves.
Asawa once said she wanted to “enclose space without blocking it out,” and seeing these in person, you realize she achieved exactly that. They are there, but they are also empty.
Beyond the Wire
While the “baskets” get all the glory, the smaller room with her works on paper is also a revelation. I spent a long time looking at a piece made entirely from a “BMC” laundry stamp from her days at Black Mountain College. It’s a simple, repetitive mark that creates this undulating, textile-like pattern. You can see the DNA of her sculptures right there on the page, the obsession with the “economy of line” she learned from Josef Albers.
Notebook Thoughts:
- The Vibe: Surprisingly intimate for such a high-profile gallery. It felt like a “mini-museum” show.
- Key Takeaway: You don’t need to be loud to be powerful. These wires are thin, but they hold the entire room.
2026 Retrospective Note:
It’s wild to look back at this 2017 entry and remember how “new” this felt to the New York establishment. In 2017, this was David Zwirner’s first show after taking over her estate. It was a formal “re-introduction” of Asawa to the canon.
Fast forward to today, 2026, and Asawa is no longer an “overlooked” artist; she’s a cornerstone of 20th-century modernism. We’ve seen the massive MoMA retrospective now, and at SFMoMA and her prices have skyrocketed, but I still think back to this specific afternoon at Zwirner. It was the moment the art world finally stopped calling her a “craftsperson” and started calling her a master.
