Sara VanDerBeek (b. 1976, Baltimore) fuses and assembles objects, images, and sculptures to be photographed, examining the elusiveness of memory and time. Throughout her work, VanDerBeek blends art history, American culture, and family archives, capturing past and present through the lens of her camera. She currently lives and works in New York.
Solo exhibitions include Veiled Presence: The Hidden Mothers and Sara VanDerBeek, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (2025); Lace Interlace, The Approach, London, UK (2023); Chorus, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA (2021); Women & Museums, Metro Pictures, New York, NY (2019); VanDerBeek + VanDerBeek, Black Mountain College Museum, Asheville, NC (2019); Roman Women, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA (2019); Liz Deschenes and Sara VanDerBeek, Villa di Geggiano, Siena, Italy (2019); Women and Museums, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN (2019); Pieced Quilts, Wrapped Forms, Metro Pictures, New York, NY (2016); Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2015); Sensory Spaces 6, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2015); Electric Prisms, Concrete Forms, The Approach, London, UK (2015); Ancient Objects, Still Lives, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2014); Metro Pictures, New York, NY (2013); The Approach, London, UK (2012); Fondazione Memmo, Rome, Italy (2012); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2011); To Think of Time, Whitney Museum, New York, NY (2010); Of Ruins and Light, Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA (2010); The Principle of Superimposition, The Approach, London, UK (2008); Mirror in the Sky, D’Amelio Terras, New York, NY (2006).
Group exhibitions include Fairyland 2, Miami, FL (2025); Collection Spotlight: Sara VanDerBeek, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2025); PHALLUS::FACISNUM::FASCISM, The Box, Los Angeles, CA (2025); Cut Up/Cut Out: Photomontage and Collage, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (2024) How Do We Know the World?, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (2024); Toward the Celestial: ICA Miami’s Collection at 10 Years, Institute of Contemporary Art, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Miami, FL (2024); Mother Lode: Material and Memory, James Cohan, New York, NY (2024); Tabula Rasa, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY (2024); Vapor and Light, Shin Gallery Project Space, Seoul, Korea (2024); Family Affair, The Bunker Artspace Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody, West Palm Beach, FL (2023); Layers of Perception: The Pictures Generation and Beyond, Shin Gallery, New York, NY (2023); The Garden, The Approach, London, UK (2023); Triangles within a Square: Art and Mathematics, Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (2023); Future Variations, Showroom, New York, NY, organized by the artist (2022); Encounters: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2021); Hand in Hand, Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner, New York, NY (2021); Soft Network, Rachel Comey Cobble Hill, New York, NY (2021); New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2021); Up To and Including Her Limits: Sari Dienes, Carolee Schneemann, Sara VanDerBeek, Halsey McKay, East Hampton, NY (2021); Interior Scroll or What I Did on My Vacation, S & S, Art Building, East Hampton, NY (2021); Becoming, Saint Joseph’s Art Society, San Francisco, CA (2021);
Highlights and Collections
VanDerBeeks’ work is in the collections of Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, NC; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Miami, FL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; NSU Art Museum Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, FL; Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; Rollins Museum of Art, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; The Francis Young Tang Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, MA; The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Miami, FL; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; UBS Art Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK. She has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2023); Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2021); Benjamin J. Menschel Fellowship (1997).