GRI Adds Maren Hassinger Archive

Maren Hassinger, On Dangerous Ground (artist in studio), 1981. Photo (c) Museum Associates/LACMA

The Art Newspaper is reporting that the Getty Research Institute has acquired the archive of Maren Hassinger. Born in Leimert Park, Hassinger took her MFA at UCLA and was part of the Studio Z collective, which included Senga Nengudi, David Hammons, and Ulysses Jenkins. After years of relative neglect, Hassinger's work is trending with curators and acquisition committees. In 2021 LACMA featured a large Hassinger wire piece at the entrance to its galleries of modern art, opposite a Brancusi. Hassinger is  creating a public sculpture for Destination Crenshaw, to open this fall, and Dia Beacon is to open a long-term installation this December. 

The Hassinger archive joins others acquired under the Getty's African American Art History Initiative, inaugurated in 2018. The GRI preserves comprehensive bodies of material on Betye Saar, Richard Hunt, and architect Paul Revere Williams as well as smaller holdings on Ed Bereal, Mark Bradford, Melvin Edwards, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker. 

The Hassinger material runs 200 linear feet and includes preparatory drawings, photographs, handwritten notes, and audio-visual material from the late 1960s onward.

UPDATE: Getty press release is here.

Hassinger's Untitled (Sea Anemone), 1971, as installed at LACMA, 2021