Ruth Asawa

The work of Ruth Asawa is considered one of the major artistic rediscoveries of recent years. The versatile oeuvre of the American artist with Japanese roots includes wire and bronze sculptures, drawings, prints, paintings, and public artworks. In her delicate wire sculptures, she transformed a simple, everyday material into fascinating three-dimensional objects, collapsing the boundaries between art and craft, and between action and contemplation. Alongside these, she created works on paper that move between figuration and abstraction.

The catalogue for the exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler—the artist’s first retrospective in Europe—presents her work in German for the first time. The exhibition was initiated by SFMOMA, San Francisco, and MoMA, New York, where it was first shown. More than 200 works in various media demonstrate the material and conceptual spectrum of her practice, in which transparency and tactility, lightness and discipline form a poetic alliance. The abundant visual material is accompanied by art-historical essays that introduce the artist’s work and situate her practice within the context of postwar American art.

Pre-order: The exhibition catalogue will be published on 18 October 2026