Boca Museum of Art Presents Largest Sari Dienes Exhibition Ever

The Boca Raton Museum of Art is entering its final month of showing Sari Dienes: Incidental Nature, the largest ever exhibition featuring the work of this original member of the Neo-Dada movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

Described by curator and administrator Barbara Pollitt of the Sari Dienes Foundation, in a new video from the museum, as a “coming of age” for New York artist Sari Dienes, this major exploration of her work offers multiple rooms displaying pieces in a variety of media, and it has its own book and film (Sari Dienes: A Life In Art) to go with it.

Visitors to the show will get a chance to experience Dienes’ work in its many forms, beginning with black and white rubbings of graves, rocks, manholes and other urban subjects in the entryway. Along with the two-dimensional pieces and castings, the museum exhibits and example of Dienes’ mobiles, called “falls,” made of seashells.

There are also found object sculptures, photographs and more from the life of this artist who spent time with all the greatest talents of her era, including mentoring Robert Rauschenberg, inspiring Jasper Johns and working with John Cage, experimental filmmaker Stan VanDerBeek and Cy Twombly, among others.

In fact, Cage, Rauschenberg, Johns and Hamptons-based mail artist Ray Johnson all appear in portraiture, rubbings, and homages in this exhibition, which focuses on three elements of her career as an artist: her 1950s street rubbings, work inspired by her several trips to Japan, and portraits of her peer group.

Unfortunately, despite the company she kept, Dienes has been hugely underrepresented over the years, especially since her death in 1992, but a show like this could be just the thing to put her at the forefront where she’s always belonged.

Sari Dienes: Incidental Natureis on view at the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Boca Raton (501 Plaza Real) through Sunday, October 22. For more info, call 561-392-2500 or visit bocamuseum.org.