“Salon” (2024), a bronze installation by Alison Saar, was inaugurated on June 23, 2024, in the public garden of the Champs-Elysées in Paris, France. | Photo by Fred Mauviel, Courtesy City of Paris
THE PARIS OLYMPICS open next week and there is great anticipation and rampant speculation about how sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson will fare in Track & Field, if Simone Biles is destined to dominate the Gymnastics competition again, and whether NBA stars Stephen Curry and LeBron James can lead the USA basketball team to victory. American athletes are among the most closely watched at the international games. An American artist is also in the Olympic spotlight.
Alison Saar (b. 1956) was commissioned to produce an artwork in commemoration of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. The Los Angeles artist envisioned a sculpture that would speak to shared humanity and represent the many nations that are coming together in peace to compete.
Titled “Salon” (2024), Saar’s installation is anchored by a larger-than-life Black female figure facing six different chairs familiar to various cultures around the world. The seats are arranged in a circle, forming a welcoming gathering place for rest, reflection, dialogue, and engagement. The work is permanently installed in the public garden of the Champs-Elysées in the 8th Arrondissement.
The bronze sculpture was unveiled on June 23 at a ceremony featuring Saar; International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach; Carine Rolland, Deputy Mayor of Culture and the City of Paris; Mayor of the 8th Arrondissement Jeanne d’Hauteserre; and Haitian poet Jean d’Amérique, who gave an inaugural poetry reading.
Alison Saar said it was important to her that the larger-than-life figure that anchors her Olympic installation be a woman and of African descent. “I feel there aren’t very many monuments to them” in France, Saar said. The volcanic rock the figure is sitting on was sourced from a quarry in Mont-Dore in the Puy-de-Dôme region of France. | Photo by Henri Garat, Courtesy City of Paris
IOC President Thomas Bach; Carine Rolland, Deputy Mayor of Culture and the City of Paris; and Mayor of the 8th Arrondissement Jeanne d’Hauteserre, were among the officials who honored Alison Saar at the official unveiling of “Salon” (2024) at the public garden of the Champs-Elysées (June 23, 2024). | Photo by Henri Garat, Courtesy City of Paris
“Your art is an invitation to take a seat—and reflect on the beauty of diversity of humankind,” Bach, the IOC president, said in a statement. “Each seat in this collection represents different cultures, traditions and histories. ‘Salon’ is an invitation for dialogue; for exchange; for coming together; for sharing. In this way, your sculptures are a wonderful illustration of what happens at the Olympic Games.”
The International Olympic Committee and the City of Paris selected Saar from a shortlist of prominent American artists invited to submit proposals.
“I am deeply honored to have been chosen to create the Olympic sculpture,” Saar said in a statement when the commission was announced. “I hope that this work of art, a gift to Parisians, will become a unifying place and a symbol of the spirit of friendship and interconnection between cultures and across borders.”
Saar produced the entire work in France. “By employing French craftspeople, we are not only reducing our costs and our carbon footprint, we also are supporting local talents and suppliers,” she said.
“‘Salon’ is an invitation for dialogue; for exchange; for coming together; for sharing. In this way, your sculptures are a wonderful illustration of what happens at the Olympic Games.” — IOC President Thomas Bach
Los Angeles artist Alison Saar was selected to produce the Olympic sculpture from a shortlist of leading American artists invited to submit proposals. | Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno, Courtesy Arion Press
SAAR WORKS PRIMARILY with sculpture. Her practice centers women, examines issues of justice and compassion, draws from a variety of cultures, and considers the connections between the body, spirit, and nature. Previous public artworks by Saar include “Swing Low” (2008), a Harriet Tubman sculpture in Harlem, the first public monument to a Black woman in New York; “Feallan and Fallow” (2011), a temporary installation in Madison Square Park in New York; and “Embodied” (2014) at the Hall of Justice in Downtown Los Angeles. She recently unveiled a new work at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Montgomery Freedom Park in Alabama and at the end of the year her contribution to Destination Crenshaw in Los Angeles is expected to debut.
“Salon” is Saar’s first public commission outside of the United States. The installation is informed by the salons hosted by American poet Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), who moved to Paris in 1903 and remained until her death four decades later. On Saturday evenings, Stein and Alice B. Toklas, her longstanding partner, opened up their living room, bringing together avant-garde painters, literary figures, and composers, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The attraction was the impressive art collection Stein assembled with her brother Leo Stein and the intellectual community she engendered where the artists could share their work and exchange ideas.
Saar’s Olympic installation is more egalitarian, imagining a public salon of sorts. The work features a central figure seated on a volcanic rock surrounded by six chairs representing different regions of the world and their attendant design styles, industries, materials, and occupations. From West Africa, Saar included an honorary stool. There is also a hand-hewn child’s chair from Central America; a drum-style ceramic garden stool from China; a classic European bentwood chair; a three-legged milking stool from France; and a curule seat, a portable chair for dignitaries that is usually foldable, that references the origin of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece.
“I wanted to do a female and I wanted to do a female of color, just because I think we’re largely underrepresented in the larger world of things.”
— Alison Saar
ALISON SAAR, Detail of “Salon,” 2024 (bronze). There are several nods to the Olympic Games incorporated in “Salon.” The figure is holding a golden flame in the palm of her outstretched hand referencing the Olympic torch. In the other hand, she is grasping olive branches, symbolizing peace and goodwill. The Olympic rings (which represent the five inhabited continents of the world) appear at the center of the installation. | Photo by Greg Martin, Courtesy International Olympic Committee
Detail view of Alison Saar working on the olive branches featured in her Olympic sculpture, “Salon” (2024). | Courtesy International Olympic Committee, Storm Studio
Visitors to the public park are encouraged to interact with the installation and use the chairs for sitting and engaging. “First off, I wanted to do a female and I wanted to do a female of color, just because I think we’re largely underrepresented in the larger world of things,” Saar said in an Olympic video at the unveiling. “Then I got the idea to have all of these chairs surrounding her, so it was a space for people to come together. People could read poems and have lunch and meet new people. I would really love for people to come and have an experience.”
“Salon” is part of IOC’s Olympic Art Visions program. Working with the Olympic Museum, IOC invites accomplished artists to create an original artwork “inspired by sport and the Olympic values” for public installation in the cities hosting the Olympic Games. The artists are symbolically passing the torch to each other in anticipation of the coming games in the next host city. The 2028 games are in Saar’s hometown of Los Angeles.
In Paris, Saar’s sculpture makes a poignant statement about French history, far beyond any references to Stein. “The reason I wanted it to be a person of African descent was that there’s a massive population of African descent in France. I feel there aren’t very many monuments to them, and France owes a great debt to its many colonized countries, as well as enslavement overseas. I wanted to pay homage to their contribution and this existence in France, in terms of how much money was made off their backs,” Saar told the Observer.
“Also, I wanted to give people an excuse to come to this neighborhood, which feels very exclusive and very, you know, riche. Like, come down here and feel comfortable—feel like you’re invited to the table.” CT
Alison Saar worked with French suppliers and craftsmen to produce “Salon” (2024). The Los Angeles artist collaborated with Pauline de Gourcuff and her foundry, Fonderie Fusions, in Auvergne, France, to cast and pour the bronze sculpture. | Courtesy International Olympic Committee, Storm Studio
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BOOKSHELF
The exhibition catalog “Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe” (2020) is the first major monograph of the artist. It accompanied a show co-organized by the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Calif. Several other publication document the work of Alison Saar. Earlier volumes include “Mirror, Mirror: The Prints of Alison Saar: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation,” and “Body Politics: The Female Image in Luba Art and the Sculpture of Alison Saar.” Also consider, “Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar.”
