Ruth Asawa's first retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1973 featured a communal "dough-in" where children made art from baker's clay, a practice that drew skepticism from some onlookers. Now in 2025, SFMOMA presents a larger retrospective of Asawa's work, showcasing her wire sculptures, drawings, and playful, community-oriented art. The exhibition, organized by SFMOMA's Janet Bishop and MoMA's Cara Manes, will travel to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and the Fondation Beyeler.
This retrospective matters because it repositions Asawa's legacy, challenging the perception of her work as cold or purely conceptual. By emphasizing the playful, intellectual, and communal aspects of her practice, the show argues that her art was both a form of amusement and a serious inquiry into her place in the world. The exhibition arrives at a time when Asawa's market value has soared—her wire sculptures have sold for over $5 million at auction—and her reputation has expanded globally, including a posthumous debut at the Venice Biennale in 2022.