05/26/2026
Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar
May 30 – August 22, 2026
Opening Reception, Friday, May 29, 5–7pm
Roberts Projects is delighted to present Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar, an exhibition exploring the central role of costume design in Saar’s early career and throughout her life as a mother and artist. The archivally-driven exhibition features over 200 objects, including costume designs, photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historic materials from the 1950s–1970s.
Anchored by Saar’s costume designs, Let’s Get It On brings together for the first time a collection of newly-discovered photographs documenting early productions at the Inner City Cultural Center (ICCC)—a multicultural performing arts institution founded in the wake of the 1965 Watts Rebellion—presented alongside the original sketches she created for those very performances.
While working for the theater, Saar also regularly made clothes, jewelry and costumes for her daughters and others, many of them for the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, held at Paramount Ranch in Southern California from 1964–1973.
Images: Betye Saar, Antigone (Red Dress), 1970. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Paul Salveson. Betye Saar, Cocaloony costume design for The Gnadiges Fraulein, 1970. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Paul Salveson. Lee Clark Champion, Ruth Warshawsky and Isabel Sanford in Betye Saar-designed costumes for The Gnadiges Fraulein, Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, January 1970. Courtesy of the artist, Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California, and Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Irvin Paik. Leather vest designed by Betye Saar for folk singer-songwriter and civil rights activist Len Chandler, c. 1972. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Paul Salveson. Betye Saar, Mojo necklace, 1974. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Paul Salveson.