Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing

June 6–November 29, 2026

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing will be the most significant retrospective of the work of Maren Hassinger, presenting her work across sculpture, performance, video, and installation from the early 1970s to the present. Hassinger’s work addresses social and cultural issues through an awareness of interconnectedness, ephemerality, and relationships between humans and the natural world. These themes emphasize the importance of caring for the things we share in contrast to the things that divide us. The exhibition will survey Hassinger’s expansive career, making connections across her practice and asserting her dynamic place in the history of contemporary art.

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Maren Hassinger, documentation of performance Tree Duet I, 5617 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, c. 1974. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. Photo: Adam Avila.
Maren Hassinger, River, 1972/2011. Mixed media installation with steel chains and rope, 7 x 89 x 358 in. Collection of the Studio Museum of Harlem, NYC. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.
Maren Hassinger, documentation of performance Pink Trash, 1982. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC. Photo: Horace Brockington.
Maren Hassinger, Leaning, 1980. Wire rope and wire, 16 in. high each (32 units); 432 in. dia. installation. Collection of the Museum Of Modern Art, NYC. Acquired through the generosity of The Modern Women's Fund and Ronnie Heyman, 2018. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.
Maren Hassinger with participants creating Sign of the Times, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, 2023. Courtesy of Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.

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Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing

June 6–November 29, 2026

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing will be the most significant retrospective of the work of Maren Hassinger to date, presenting her work across sculpture, performance, video, and installation from the early 1970s to the present. Hassinger’s work addresses social and cultural issues through an awareness of interconnectedness, ephemerality, and relationships between humans and the natural world. These themes emphasize the importance of caring for the things we share in contrast to the things that divide us. The exhibition will survey Hassinger’s expansive career, making connections across her practice and asserting her dynamic place in the history of contemporary art.

Born in Los Angeles in 1947, Hassinger trained in dance from a young age. She studied sculpture at Bennington College in Vermont and completed an MFA in Fiber Structure in 1973 at University of California, Los Angeles. During this period, she began working with steel wire rope, a material that became a signature in her work, which she has returned to throughout her career. In the late 1970s, Hassinger participated in the loose-knit collective Studio Z alongside Senga Nengudi, Ulysses Jenkins, and David Hammons, whose studio was the space where the group staged several performances. Here, Hassinger found support for her experimental approaches to abstraction, using unique materials to evoke organic forms and movement.

Living Moving Growing builds upon the understanding that collaboration and participation are crucial to Hassinger’s practice, foregrounding how her work in sculpture and performance transcends disciplinary boundaries to embrace audiences and assert art’s relationship to society. In particular, it will bring focus to Hassinger’s engagement with the natural world. As the artist has described, the loss of nature is the most pressing issue of our time as it is a fundamental threat to the thing we all share: the earth. This exhibition will bring together archival documentation of performances and happenings, loans from significant museum collections across the US, recreations of ephemeral installations, and a series of performances and participatory workshops with the artist.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication, offering the most comprehensive examination of Hassinger’s work to date, featuring contributions by Hilton Als, Linda Goode Bryant, Robyn Farrell, Anthony Graham, Ava Hassinger, Kristin Juarez, Senga Nengudi, Margot Norton, and Lowery Stokes Sims.

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Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing is curated by Margot Norton, Chief Curator, and Anthony Graham, Senior Curator. This exhibition is made possible through support from the Shah Garg Women Artists Research Fund. Major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.