SAAM :: New Acquistions

Selected New Acquisitions

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is dedicated to the acquisition, presentation, and preservation of the finest works of art created by American artists. The collections cover painting, sculpture, graphic arts of all media, folk art, decorative arts, and contemporary crafts.

In recent years the museum's acquisition efforts have focused on strengthening its modern and contemporary collections.

Jenny Holzer's For SAAM (2007)

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's most recent acquisition is For SAAM, a major site-specific light sculpture by Jenny Holzer (b. 1950). Holzer is an internationally renowned artist best known for her pioneering work incorporating texts into light-based sculptures and projections.

For SAAM (2007) is Holzer's first cylindrical column of light and text created from white electronic LEDs (light emitting diodes). The piece, according to the artist, is "sensitive to the formal integrity of the museum and attuned to the experience of the collection and space."

The sculpture, which is approximately 28 feet tall and 4 feet in diameter, features texts from four of the artist's series—Truisms, Living (selections), Survival (selections) and Arno—and includes some of her best-known statements. The texts are programmed to swirl and travel around the body of the piece. By varying the height, font, intensity and direction of the scrolling letters, Holzer activates the transparent column and the surrounding space with light that reflects off surfaces in the gallery.

For SAAM is the latest work that is part of Holzer's ongoing exploration of art and architecture. She has created site-specific work for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Reichstag in Berlin and 7 World Trade Center in New York City, among others. For SAAM is on display in the museum's third floor Lincoln Gallery with other contemporary artworks from the permanent collection.

For SAAM, 2007, Electronic LED array with white diodes, 336 x 48 in. (853.4 x 121.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, © 2007 Jenny Holzer/ member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo by Gene Young.

Beth Lipman's Bancketje (2003)

The museum's most recent acquisition is Beth Lipman's tour-de-force glass sculpture Bancketje (2003), a 20-foot-long oak table laden with 400 blown and lampworked glass objects. This piece captures the visual sumptuousness and excess of a feast like the ones depicted in 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings called "bancketje." Like these elaborate scenes, Lipman's half-eaten morsels, overturned goblets and snuffed candles symbolically depict the transience of life. By rendering the scene in transparent glass and skillfully blending the various components, Lipman demands that the piece be seen as a whole, not an assemblage of individual objects.

Beth Lipman is renowned for her sculptural compositions which re-interpret Renaissance and Baroque still-life paintings from Holland, Flanders and Italy, as well as from 18th- and 19th-century America. Lipman takes elements from these paintings-static composition, expressive light and opulent decoration-and translates the scenes into three-dimensions. Bancketje is on display in the permanent collection galleries at the museum's Renwick Gallery beginning August 4, 2007.

Beth Lipman, Bancketje, 2003, hand-sculpted, blown, kiln-formed and lampworked glass with gold paint, oak, oil and mixed media, 67 x 50 x 240 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of the James Renwick Alliance. Photo by Mildred Baldwin.