Blood/Sweat/Tears

2005

Alison Saar American, born 1956

On View

African American, Level 2, North Wing

Blood/Sweat/Tears: 1 of Collection Gallery

Blood/Sweat/Tears: 2 of Collection Gallery

Blood/Sweat/Tears: 3 of Collection Gallery

Blood/Sweat/Tears: 4 of Collection Gallery

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About the Artwork

Alison Saar creates life-size figures that emotionally embody what it means to be human. She explores desire, anxiety, aging, and loss in expressive sculptures based on her own body and informed by her own experiences. Her figures begin as a lumber beam, which she carves with a chain saw; sometimes, as in Blood/Sweat/Tears, she covers them in a copper skin. The grief expressed by this figure is palpable. She succumbs to her sorrow, hunching her shoulders and cradling her head in her hands. The rusted nails that secure the surface copper to the wooden core trace scar-like patterns all over her body. Droplets made of cast bronze—blood, sweat and tears—cover her skin. Such expressions of grief and suffering are universally clear, but knowledge of the recent death of Saar’s father Richard, a ceramicist and art conservator, adds a personal dimension to the title’s reference to arduous physical sacrifice. From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)

Title Blood/Sweat/Tears

Artwork Date 2005

Artist Alison Saar

Life Dates born 1956

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. American

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. Unknown

Medium Wood, copper, bronze, paint and tar

Dimensions Overall: 72 × 24 × 20 inches (182.9 × 61 × 50.8 cm)

Classification Sculpture

Department African American Art

Credit Museum Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 2011.2

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Provenance

2011-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

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Exhibition History

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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

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