Radical Women: Betye Saar Working My Mojo

Listening to Betye Saar speaks about “ my job is to keep the vessel open so that the spirit can move through me and make the sounds it wants you to hear” and pondering of her identity as African- American, after The Liberation of Aunt Jemima(1972) her later works seems turn the political statements of Civil Rights to the resistance of White domain culture that Building the confidence of her identity  

During the time of Civil Rights and Black Panther movements, Saar turns the theme of her work from astrological symbols such as tarot cards and Cranial anthroposcopy to politics. She notes she got the motivation ” because of strong feelings that happened with that movement. ” With the hoppy of collecting mundane life objects of folk culture, she found the Aunt Jemima as a transformed symbol to carry the message of insurrection. As Hellen Molesworth said, “Aunt Jemima’s face no longer reads as subservient”. Also, Marci Kwon notes “assemblage artists tended to dumpster dive, using the leftovers of commodity culture.” From the Jim Crow era until Saar’s time, colored people suffer from discrimination in public and The image of African American on commodities are manipulated stereotypes that obey to the Whites. The consciousness of civil rights leads Saar to explore the confidence in historical African culture. She assembles astrological symbols, esoterica, the occult, and mysticism images.“You call to the ancestors and say, ‘I need your spirit and energy right now to get through this.’” as Bryant speaks. With the help of gathering the power of spirit link and historical sharing memories, Saar succeed in making African Americans, her true audiences to feel proud of their identity. 

Through putting African Americans’ images in major museums, ultimately Saar spells her Mojo by the works which erect a heroic flag to light on the future of racial struggles in the art world.