It’s hard not to laugh when you look at Marisol’s sculptures. Unapologetically funny, Marisol Escobar (1930–2016) possessed a deadpan wit in the tradition of Buster Keaton. Her art is droll, even mordant, but humor doesn’t undercut the more intimate, violent, or unsettling elements in work that touches on motherhood, gender, celebrity, social activism, environmental destruction, and political power. Marisol cast a cool eye, yet her sculptures are earthbound, approachable—and flat-out fun.
Creating objects in a variety of mediums, she had an abiding fascination with masks and placed a strong emphasis on drawing. Marisol is usually considered a maker of Pop art, but she’s as hard to classify as Frida Kahlo or Joseph Cornell. This is delightfully visible in “Marisol: A Retrospective,” a comprehensive exhibition that just opened at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and will tour. It restores Marisol’s deserved place in the pantheon of 20th-century artists.
