Cache

Label

Combining woodcarving with found objects and industrial materials, Alison Saar constructs enigmatic large-scale figures whose origins seem rooted in folklore or legend rather than everyday reality. Despite the mythological nature of Caché, however, the sculpture conveys the weight of lived experience and an individual consciousness through subtle gestures and symbolic attributes.

Caché consists of a nude reclining woman whose mass of balled hair extends along the floor in front of her. Sheets of rusted and irregularly marked ceiling tin serve as the figure’s exposed brown flesh; lined and imperfect, the tin suggests scars, wrinkles, and other signs of aging, while also evoking African scarification rituals. Having both African and European ancestry, Saar often depicts figures of mixed heritage in order to contemplate the complexity and social and historical connotations of racial identity. Her figure’s thick accumulation of hair, represented by a sprawling ball of wire, speaks not only to racial and cultural identity but also to the passage of time and the accumulated memories and experiences that this woman carries with her. Saar suggests that the woman’s profound yet burdensome heritage, signified by this mass of hair, is not easily eluded.

Her aged skin, long mound of hair, and posture—reclining on the ground in an active state of contemplation—communicate the knowledge that comes with lived experience and maturation. The woman’s nudity frees her from the specific cultural attributes conveyed by clothing, and thus Saar arrives at a more universal figure of womanhood. The title of the work refers to that which is hidden; the artist insinuates the hidden heritage, hidden thoughts, and hidden desires that this mysterious figure conceals.

From the 2019 exhibition The Expanding Universe of Postwar Art, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

A nude Black female figure lies on the gallery floor, her left hand positioned in front of her. She is either at rest or poised to push herself upward. But how could she rise, tethered to a large ball of her own hair? Her brown skin is strikingly textured, suggesting age, scars, or beautification marks. The artist fashioned it from antique tin ceiling material that encases her carved wooden body. Caché, the title, refers to something hidden. It invites us to speculate. What experiences does this figure carry with her? What dreams might she dream?

From the 2024 exhibition Immersive Worlds: Real and Imagined, curated by Amelia Kahl, Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming and Neely McNulty, Hood Foundation Curator of Education

Course History

ARTH 2, Introduction to the History of Art II, Katie Hornstein, Jane Carroll, Winter 2013

ARTH 2, Introduction to the History of Art II, Katie Hornstein, Jane Carroll, Winter 2013

WRIT 5, Expository Writing, William Craig, Winter 2014

AAAS 67.5, GEOG 21.01, Black Consciousness and Black Feminisms, Abigail Neely, Winter 2019

SART 23, Figure Sculpture, Leslie Fry, Spring 2019

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

Exhibition History

Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 1-August 10, 2008; Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, September 10-December 10, 2008; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California, January 21-April 26, 2009.

Coup, L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, California, February 23-March 25, 2006.

Flesh and Desire [curated by Art History II Professors Jane Carroll and Katie Hornstein], Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth Collection January 7-March 4, 2013.

Immersive Worlds: Real and Imagined, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 13-December 15, 2024.

In Residence: Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-July 6, 2014.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

The Expanding Universe of Postwar Art, Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26-December 1, 2019.

Virtual Space for Dialogue: 2017, Vanity: Disrupting The Female Nude, Jessica King Fredel, Class of 2017, Levinson Intern, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. https://www.jkingfredel.vsfd.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/

Publication History

Barbara Thompson, Saar and Bannarn: Hood Acquires Two Sculptures by African American Artists, Hood Museum of Art Quarterly, No. 17, Autumn 2006, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, p. 14.

Annual Report 2005-6, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2006, ill. p.28.

Barbara Thompson, Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Seattle: University of Washington Press [Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College], 2008, p. 351, plate 128.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009, p.132, no.105.

Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 101 , no. 91

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 205, ill. plate no. 136.

Provenance

The artist; L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, California; sold to present collection, 2006.

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