An Artist at Home on the Fault Lines
Analia Saban is a UCLA Arts alumna and contemporary artist working in Los Angeles. She received her MFA in New Genres in 2005 and said of her work, "I use a spectrum of materials depending on what needs to be conveyed through the work." Blurring the lines between painting and sculpture, imagery and objecthood, her work frequently includes plays on art historical references and traditions. Saban’s works are represented in the collections of the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Museum of Contemporary Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in New York; Norton Museum of Art in Florida; Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires, among others.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Analia Saban’s studio here, which she took over from John Baldessari eight years ago, is still packed with remnants from the early, heady, low-rent days when conceptual art started in Los Angeles. She points out boxes of correspondence and records left behind by Mr. Baldessari, a pioneer of the movement.
On the dingy bathroom wall is a gift he received from another central figure, Lawrence Weiner: a text piece that says in red, “the trace of an action past, i.e. a wet place.” In the back remains a small darkroom built in 1971 by an earlier inhabitant, William Wegman, who also left a basketball hoop. “These guys never move out, they just leave,” Ms. Saban offered, smiling.
Then there’s the jagged crack running through the concrete floor, caused by an earthquake. The crack shows up in early photographs and videos by Baldessari and Wegman.— Alex Greenberger, Jun. 28, 2017
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