There is a certain disjointed element about Los Angeles that disturbs those who haven't lived within it. So vastly different from its East Coast peers, Los Angeles doesn't read like a work of art so much as it does a maze of class disparity and smog. But growing up within this maze grants its children a kinder, keener eye. The pieces of the city come together to form a home entirely unique to each inhabitant. A special handful of these inhabitants—like epochal multimedia artist Betye Saar—eek special meaning in each part part, finding a beautiful, whole universe within these disparate pieces. 

Known for her pioneering of assemblage art, as well as her dedicated approach to topics of African American identity and collectivity, Saar's work is defined by a focus on integration in both theme and material. Her enduring curiosity delves into the structure of spirituality, shaping abstract concepts into tangible, illustrative imagery. In celebration of the virtuoso's centennial birthday this summer, Roberts Projects Publications releases Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar, a fashion and art anthology that traces Saar's creative evolution. The project's accompanying exhibit debuts at the company's Los Angeles gallery and is open to the public from May 30 to August 22, showcasing some of the artist's most profound works.

Centering theatrical costumery alongside archival jewelry and leatherwear creations, Let's Get It On honors the Saar's textile creations as an extension of her more traditional fine art expressions. The publication features a comprehensive display of rare photographs, illustrations, garments, and abstract oddities from the artisan's personal archive, simultaneously displaying newer works commissioned to develop the ongoing narrative of her practice. Its pages feature new scholarship, including an introduction from Roberts Projects cofounder Julie Roberts and an essay from Saar’s daughter, Trayce Saar-Cavanaugh, detailing her experience of a household where art was inextricably linked to life. 

A native Angeleno, Saar was steeped in L.A.'s flourishing arts scene from the very beginning of her life. She watched the Watts Towers be built from scrap pieces by artist Simon Rodia while living in the neighborhood and attended UCLA where she earned a B.A. in design. From an early age, she had an understanding that anything could become art, fostering her lifelong engagement with Black cultural expression. Saar committed herself to contributing creatively to resistance movements through her assemblage art, taking fragments sometimes thought of as scraps and blending them into a cohesive work.

Saar worked in costume design in the 60s and 70s, work that later informed her production of assemblage art by interlinking wearable works and visual pieces. These works crafted early in her career from theatrical costumes to leather accessories and jewelry, have by and large been treated as supplementary to her visual work rather than subjects of their own observation. Roberts Projects aims to remedy this, offering a cohesive, lifelong study of Betye Saar’s creative practices that have had a generational impact on the art world. Including custom designs and one-of-a-kind reproductions of previously unreleased works, Let's Get It On invites readers to admire the lesser known works of Betye Saar as a diversely talented creative with an influence that spans both decades and mediums.

An exhibit focused on the entire scope of Saar's artistic output, Roberts Projects' gallery installation focuses on the original drawings, essays and materials used in her works, largely unseen by the public eye. Its contents feature over two hundred wearable objects on display, with the majority of these objects originally crafted between the 1950s and 70s. This physical adaptation of Let's Get It On emphasizes the essentiality of record-keeping and historical detail, treating Saar's efforts in documentation with just as much reverance as her art. In the development of this exhibition, Roberts Projects' team of expert scholars--hand-picked by Saar herself--devoted over a decade to the practice of cataloguing and curating the artist's creations, culminating in an extensively researched and comprehensive showing. The gallery's book launch takes place on July 25th, where Saar and other contributors will take part in a signing.