Maren Hassinger facts for kids

Maren Hassinger (born Maren Louise Jenkins in 1947) is an African-American artist and teacher. Her art career has lasted for over forty years. Hassinger uses many different art forms. These include sculpture, film, dance, performance art, and public art. She explores how nature and man-made materials connect.

Maren Hassinger often uses everyday items in her art. These can be wire rope, plastic bags, branches, dirt, newspaper, leaves, and cardboard boxes. She wants her art to be about things we all care about. This includes social and environmental issues. She hopes her work shows a kind and human message about our future together.

Hassinger first trained in dance. But in college, she started making sculptures and other visual art. She earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from UCLA in 1973. She was also the director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art for ten years. Today, she lives and works in New York City.

Early Life

Maren Louise Jenkins was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1947. Her mother, Helen Mills Jenkins, was a police officer and teacher. Her father, Carey Kenneth Jenkins, was an architect.

From a young age, Maren showed a talent for art. She saw her mother's interest in arranging flowers. She also watched her father work at his drafting table. These early experiences helped shape her artistic journey.

Education

In 1965, Maren Hassinger went to Bennington College. She graduated in 1969 with a degree in sculpture. She had planned to study dance, which she had done since she was five. But she decided to mix dance ideas into her sculptures instead.

During her time at Bennington College, it was an all-women's school. Most of the teachers were men. Many of them had connections to art galleries in New York City. Hassinger felt that the teachers' ideas were far from what many students experienced. She did not like the strict art rules they taught.

She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in fiber from UCLA in 1973. While at UCLA, Hassinger found wire rope in a Los Angeles junkyard. This material became a very important part of her art.

Mid-Life and Early Career

In 1969, Hassinger moved to New York City. She took drafting classes and worked as an art editor. She helped include images of African Americans in textbooks.

Jenkins married writer Peter Hassinger. In 1970, she moved back to Los Angeles with her husband. From 1984 to 1985, Hassinger was an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. This means she worked as an artist there for a period of time.

Career and Artistic Influences

Maren Hassinger began her art experiments in a Los Angeles junkyard in the early 1970s. She found large amounts of industrial wire rope there. She realized she could use this material to make sculptures. She could also shape it to look like plants.

During the 1970s, Hassinger started working with sculptor Senga Nengudi. Their friendship grew while they were both artists for a program called CETA. This government-funded program helped Hassinger create her work Twelve Trees #2 in 1979.

Hassinger and Nengudi's joint sculptures were very new for their time. They combined sculpture, dance, theater, and music. They also brought in the spirit of community meetings and exciting art events. Hassinger also uses everyday movements in her dance performances.

Many of their early works from the 1970s are no longer around. But Hassinger and Nengudi still work together. For example, Hassinger performed with Nengudi's sculpture R.S.V.P.X in 2014.

Hassinger was also part of an art group in Los Angeles called Studio Z. Other artists in this group included Senga Nengudi and David Hammons.

The writer Walker Percy also influenced Hassinger. His books often explore how modern life can feel separate from nature. This connected to her own childhood ideas about nature and man-made things.

Another artist who inspired her was Eva Hesse. Hassinger saw Hesse's work at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1973. She admired how Hesse explored shapes and techniques. Hesse also showed strong feelings through her fiber art. Hassinger felt a deep connection to Hesse's art.

Films

Maren Hassinger has made videos that explore her family's history and interactions. These films look at themes of identity. Her daughter, Ava Hassinger, is also an artist. They made a video together called "Matriarch." In it, they perform dance movements together.

In 2004, Hassinger made a film called Daily Mask. It shows her telling her personal story. It also connects to African history through sculpture, art, and women's issues.

Themes in Her Art

Some people describe Hassinger's art as "ecological," meaning it's about the environment. But Hassinger herself sees her work differently. She wants to make art that talks about people and what we all have in common.

She shows how meaningless stereotypes are. Stereotypes create barriers between people based on race or social groups. Her art helps us see the similarities that exist between everyone. Hassinger also likes to have open conversations about race and gender.

She addresses ideas of equality in works like Love. This piece uses hundreds of pink plastic bags, each with a love note inside. This shows how she can create beauty and talk about society using simple, everyday materials.

Educator

From 1997 to 2017, Maren Hassinger was the Director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She also taught as a professor at Stony Brook University for five years.

Works

• Twelve Trees #2, Los Angeles, CA, 1979
• Leaning, 1980
• On Dangerous Ground, 1981
• Pink Trash, Lynwood, CA, 1982
• Necklace of Trees, Atlanta, GA, 1985-85
• Bushes at Socrates Sculpture Park, Astoria, Queens, NY, 1988
• Plaza Planters and Tree Grates, Seattle, WA, 1986–90
• Field, Nasher Sculpture Center, 1989
• Tall Grasses, Roosevelt Island, New York, NY, 1989-90
• Circle of Bushes, Brookville, NY, 1991
• Cloud Room, Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, Pittsburgh, PA, 1992
• Evening Shadows, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 1993
• Window Boxes, Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, NY, 1993
• Fence of Leaves, P.S. 8, NY, 1995
• Ancestor Walk, New York City, 1996
• Art in the Garden, Grant Park, Chicago, IL, 2004-5
• Tree of Knowledge, 2019

A subway station in New York City, the Central Park North – 110th Street (IRT Lenox Avenue Line) station, has a work by Hassinger. It is called Message from Malcolm. It was installed during a renovation in 1998. The art uses mosaic tiles on the platform and stairs. It shows quotes and writings by Malcolm X with mosaic borders.

Collections

Maren Hassinger's art is held in many important museum collections. These include:

• Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD
• California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
• Williams College Art Museum, Williamstown, MA
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Awards and Honors

• Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art, Maryland Institute College of Art (2009)
• Grants, Joan Mitchell Foundation (1996)
• Anonymous Was a Woman Award (1997)
• Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2007)

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Maren Hassinger's art has been shown in many places. Here are some of her solo exhibitions:

• Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR, Las Vegas Ikebana: Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi (2024)
• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Maren Hassinger: This Is How We Grow (2023-2024)
• Oklahoma Contemporary Nature, Sweet Nature (2021)
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY., Maren Hassinger: Monuments, (2018-2019). These works were placed in Marcus Garvey Park.
• Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Maren Hassinger: A Retrospective (2015)
• Reginald Ingraham Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA Maren Hassinger (2014)
• Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Maren Hassinger . . . Dreaming (2013)
• Schmucker Gallery, Gettysburg, PA, USA Maren Hassinger: Lives (2010)
• Contemporary Arts Forum and Alice Keck Park, Santa Barbara, CA., Blanket of Branches and Dancing Branches, (1986)
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA., Gallery Six: Maren Hassinger, (1981)
• Just Above Midtown/Downtown Gallery, New York, NY., Beach, (1980)

Selected Group Exhibitions

Here are some group exhibitions where Maren Hassinger's work has been shown:

In 2022, the Hammer Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, held an exhibition. It was called Joan Didion: What She Means. Maren Hassinger's art was included. It was shown alongside works by 50 other artists.

• Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-85 (2017)
• Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas, USA Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art (2012)
• Havana Biennial, Cinema Remixed and Reloaded 2.0, (2012)
• Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA Now Dig This!: Art of Black Los Angeles 1960 –1980 (2011)
• Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA., Dance/Draw, (2011)
• Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists (2011)
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY., VideoStudio: Playback, (2011)
• Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD., Material Girls, (2011)
• Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, Global Africa Project, (2010)
• The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY., 30 Seconds off an Inch, (2009)