Sun, Moon, Stars
Frieze Los Angeles

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is excited to be back in Los Angeles for Frieze LA 2025 with I Love You Calif. (1966), a rare early work by Betye Saar (b.1926) that exemplifies her singular approach to assemblage, in which a multitude of carefully selected found objects are imbued with new meaning through their recontextualization. A deeply personal love letter to the place in which she was born, raised, and continues to live, I Love You Calif. assembles a quintessentially Californian scene, highlighting the state’s idyllic weather, surf culture, freeway system, and natural beauty.

In the wake of the devastating fires that have affected the art community of Los Angeles, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery seeks to support the city’s recovery efforts by donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of I Love You Calif. to the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, a Getty-led coalition of major arts organizations and philanthropists providing emergency relief for artists and arts workers who have been impacted by the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires.

Betye Saar executed I Love You Calif. when she was just beginning her career as a professional artist at the age of forty. Where the hometowns of many artists are often just points of departure, Los Angeles has been an important source of inspiration for Saar, who has lived and worked in Laurel Canyon since 1962.  Saar’s unique blend of interests and approaches to art making reflect the vibrant culture of Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s, which art historian Jessica Dallow describes as “a site of geographic convergence of feminism, assemblage art, and black consciousness.”

Created at the height of the Pop Art movement, I Love Calif. invokes consumer culture via its media, which is entirely comprised of cut outs from mass-produced metal products. At the top of the composition are icons referencing Saar’s lifelong interest in astrology: a sun icon and a medallion of a woman seated atop a crescent moon lifting her drink in a toast, the latter of which was sourced from a Miller High Life beer can. Similarly, the mountains were excerpted from a can of Anheuser-Busch beer, the palm trees were originally a can of Canada Dry, the oranges were taken from cans of TreeSweet orange juice, and the motorcycle elements were taken from a 1950s Japanese tin friction toy. With a surfboard bearing the word “SUN” that parallels a road sign referencing the “102” freeway—the east-west interstate highway that links New York City and Los Angeles—I Love You Calif. culminates in an idealized, quintessentially Californian image.

Since the beginning of her career, it has been of critical importance to Saar that her carefully chosen materials have a specific history. Through her composition and placement of these found materials, I Love You Calif. reinterprets the objects from which it is made. Through this approach, Saar constructs new and mythic narratives, using found objects as components of her powerfully unique visual language.

Dates: February 20–23, 2025

Hours:

Thursday, February 20, 10AM–7PM
Friday, February 21, 11AM–7PM
Saturday, February 22, 11AM–7PM
Sunday, February 23, 11AM–6PM

Visit Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in Booth A13