Generation: The Roots of Making in the Asawa-Lanier Family

Top image: Aiko Lanier Cuneo, Dancing Dots and Triangles, 2021.

Ruth’s Table is pleased to present Generation: The Roots of Making in the Asawa-Lanier Family, a group exhibition that brings together four generations from a San Francisco family of makers. Inspired by our namesake, world-renowned artist Ruth Asawa, the exhibition serves as an opportunity to honor Asawa’s life-long commitment to community-based art education and activism in the arts.

The word generation can have several meanings. A generation is a group of people born and living at the same time. It can also mean creating or making. Timed to coincide with Asawa’s birthday month, Generation is a tribute and a testament that Asawa’s values live on through generations – in the Asawa-Lanier family, in communities and organizations, like Ruth’s Table – that share her unwavering belief that creative engagement is essential and can impact the lives of people of all ages.

The exhibition brings together works in wire and lithography by Ruth Asawa; paintings, drawings, and birthday envelopes by Albert Lanier; paintings and a clay platter by Paul Lanier; textile, collage, and painting by Aiko Lanier Cuneo; origami portraits, paintings, and paper construction by Lilli Lanier; and paintings by Lucia Ruth Soriano. All of these artists have worked with one another on public commissions, as teaching artists in schools, and collaborated on pieces in this show.

The work exhibited in Generation spans 57 years from 1965 to 2022. Motifs rooted in interwoven patterns of line, repetition, and dynamic interactions between geometric shapes, color, and forms, appear in all artists’ works creating inherent conversation and visual connections carried through varying media. Together, they form a story of four generations of a family that is joined not only in relationship, but by the curiosity and love of materials, color, and pattern.

Lilli Lanier, Origami Ruth Asawa, 2022. Origami paper. 50” x 40”.

ROOTS OF RUTH’S TABLE
Established in 2009, Ruth’s Table is named after an actual table, constructed by Ruth Asawa’s husband architect Albert Lanier, at which Asawa created her own art and then donated to the organization, thus officially launching the start of the program. Generation: The Roots of Making in the Asawa-Lanier Family exhibition also pays homage to the roots of Ruth’s Table which was profoundly shaped by Asawa’s values and continues to use the power of art to build a more connected, resilient, and inclusive community.

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