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Alison Saar

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Saar discusses her work at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017

Alison Saar (born February 5, 1956) is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality.[1] Saar is well known for "transforming found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion."[2] Saar credits her parents, collagist and assemblage artist Betye Saar (née Brown) and painter and art conservator Richard Saar, for her early exposure to are and to these metaphysical and spiritual practices. [3] Saar followed in her parents footsteps along with her sisters, Lezley Saar and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh who are also artists.[4][5] Saar has been a practicing artist for many years, exhibiting in galleries around the world as well as installing public art works in New York City. She has received achievement awards from institutions including the New York City Art Commission as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Early life and education

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Betye Saar, Alison's mother.

Saar was born in Los Angeles, California, to a well-known African-American sculptor and installation artist, Betye Saar, and Richard Saar, a ceramicist and art conservator.[6] Saar's mother Betye was involved in the 1970s Black Arts Movement and frequently took Alison and her sisters, Lezley and Tracye, to museums and art openings during their childhood.[7] They also saw Outsider Art, such as Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in Los Angeles and Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley.[8] Saar's love of nature, intense interest in vernacular folk art and admiration of artists' ability to create beauty through the use of discarded items stemmed from her upbringing and exposure to these experiences and types of art.[9] Alison worked with her father as a conservator for eight years, starting while she was still in high school.[10] This is where she learned to carve, and she notes that it later influenced the materials she would use in her pieces.[10] Dealing with artifacts from different cultures‍—‌Chinese frescoes, Egyptian mummies, and Pre-Columbian and African art‍—‌taught Alison about properties of various materials, techniques, and aesthetics.[10] Family has continued to play a large role in Saar's work ranging from her inspiration to her process. In the words of author and interviewer Hadley Roach, "In Saar’s life, the kitchen table is the easel, the children are the assistants, and driftwood is periodically dragged in from the backyard to become somebody’s legs."[11]

Saar received a dual degree in art history and fine arts from Scripps College (Claremont, CA) in 1978, having studied with Dr. Samella Lewis.[12][13] After finishing her degrees Saar felt more compelled to pursue being an artist rather than studying art.[13] Her thesis focused on African-American folk art.[14] She received an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA) in 1981.[15] While studying at Otis College of Art and Design, Saar created pieces with fiber art that referenced Mark Rothko and Tantric Art. She came to realize that she wanted to change her art form to something that was more expressive and engaging.[16] In addition to their distinguished separate careers Saar and her mother Betye Saar have produced artworks together, such as House of Gris Gris (1989).[17] From her mother Alison "inherited a fascination with mysticism, found objects, and the spiritual potential of art."[8]

Early career

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In 1981, after graduating from Otis College of Art and Design, Saar and her husband, Tom Leesar, also an artist, moved to New York City. Together, they transformed a warehouse space in Chelsea into a loft apartment, and the tin tiles she found inside their apartment and other 19th- and early 20th-century buildings became a recurrent image in her sculptural works afterward.[16]

In 1983, Saar was an artist in residence in Harlem at the Studio Museum. She took had another residency in New Mexico in 1985. There, she integrated both her urban style with Southwest Native American and Mexican influences.[18]

Saar lived in New York for 15 years, had two children, Kyle and Maddy [19]and moved back to Los Angeles, where she currently lives.[16]

Work

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Snake Man, color woodcut and lithograph by Saar, 1994, Honolulu Museum of Art

Saar is skilled in numerous artistic mediums, including metal sculpture, wood, fresco, woodblock print, and works using found objects.[16][20][21][14] Her sculptures and installations explore themes of African cultural diaspora and spirituality.[20] Her work is often autobiographical and often acknowledges the historical role of the body as a marker of identity, and the body's connection to contemporary identity politics.[1] Snake Man (1994), in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of how the artist references both African culture and the human body in her work. The artist's multiethnic upbringing, multiracial identity and her studies of Latin American, Caribbean and African art and religion have informed her work.[22][14] Saar investigates practices of Candomblé, Santería, and Hoodoo.[23] Believing that objects contain spirits, she transforms familiar found objects to stir human emotions.[24][10]

Her highly personal, often life-sized sculptures are marked by their emotional candor, and by contrasting materials and messages she imbues her work with a high degree of cultural subtext.[25] When asked about the motivation behind her practice of utilizing found materials she states "I’ve never really thought of my printmaking as political but very much about it being populist, accessible and affordable. I love the history of broadsides where people would print out a poem and plaster the city with them, and I’ve done a couple with poets."[26]

Saar's sculptures frequently represent issues relating to gender and race through both her personal experience and historical context.[27] Many of Saar's work include messages and themes of the history of African Americans. Her 2018 exhibit, Topsy Turvy, references the character Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, a longstanding racial stereotype.[28] Saar reimagines Stowe's stereotype as a symbol of resilience and resistance instead, a character transformed through love after experiencing the vicious treatment of enslavement that left her cold and heartless.[16]

Saar has identified her artwork with the intention of emotional evocation but has not identified her work as directly political. However, In a review of the 1993 Whitney Biennial, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith said that Saar's work was among the "few instances where the political and visual join forces with real effectiveness."[29] Some of Saar's works directly reference contemporary issues, such Rise (2020), as an ode to the Black Lives Matter Movement in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Of Saar's 2006 exhibition Coup, critic Rebecca Epstein wrote, “[Saar] demonstrates deft skill with seemingly unforgiving materials (bronze, lead, tar, wood). [She] juggles themes of personal and cultural identity as she fashions various sizes of female bodies (often her own) that are buoyant with story while solid in stance.”[30]

Alison Saar, Swing Low: A Memorial to Harriet Tubman, 2007.

Public installations

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Saar has created several public works throughout the course of her career. One of her most publicized works of the early 2000s includes a memorial to Harriet Tubman titled Swing Low. This piece is located in Harriet Tubman Memorial Plaza, South Harlem, at the intersection of St. Nicholas Ave and Fredrick Douglas Boulevard on W 122nd Street. Saar is quoted describing her intentions for Tubman's representation within the work, stating that she depicted Tubman "not as the conductor of the Railroad but as the train itself, an unstoppable locomotive".[31]

A 2011 public collection of her works on display in Madison Square Park titled "Seasons" includes the individual pieces Spring, Fall, Winter, and Summer. Throughout these pieces Saar infused pomegranates into her imagery to reiterate the themes of Greek mythology that frame this work's creation. Inspired by the story of Demeter and Persephone, Saar incorporates the tale's motifs into her series of seasons.

The opening of the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024 marked the unveiling of a new public artwork by Saar in the Charles-Aznavour Garden on the city’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The monument, titled The Salon, depicts a Black woman holding an olive branch and a golden flame, surrounded by a circle of chairs that viewers are welcome to sit upon. It is meant to represent peace, as well as the power of women.[32]

Themes

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There are several reoccurring themes in Saar's oeuvre including those of mythology, girlhood, and familial relations.[33] In an interview with New York Times magazine Saar discussed her relationship with the Yoruba goddess of childbirth and rivers—Yemoja: "Yemoja crops up in my work a lot. I first discovered her when I was living in New York in the 1990s, trying to grapple with being a young mother and having a career — it felt like a real balancing act. I did a piece then called “Cool Maman,” who is balancing actual pots and pans on her head, all white enamelware. I see Yemoja as not only helping me in terms of patience and balance and child rearing but also as a watery, life-giving spirit who nourishes my creative process."[26]

Exhibitions

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Undone (2012), National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Saar's work has been exhibited in museums, biennials, galleries, and public art venues. Saar's work has been exhibited internationally with key exhibitions at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, L.A. Louver Gallery, Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York City, Ben Maltz Gallery, and Pasadena Museum of California Art.[34] She was an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College and at The Studio Museum in Harlem.[35][8] Her solo institutional exhibitions include: Directions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 1993. Alison Saar: Bearing at the Museum of the African Diaspora in 2015-16;[36][37] Winter at The Fields Sculpture Park, Omi International Arts Center in 2014-15;[38] Hothouse at the Watts Towers Art Center in 2014-15;[39] and STILL... that opened at the Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design in 2012 and traveled to the Figge Art Museum, Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013.[40][41][42]

Significant group exhibitions include: In Profile: Portraits from the Permanent Collection at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2015;[43] African American Art since 1950: Perspectives from the David C. Driskell Center, a traveling exhibition and catalogue that was presented at the University of Maryland in 2012, Taft Museum of Art in 2013, Harvey B. Gantt Center in 2014, Figge Art Museum in 2014-15, Polk Museum of Art in 2015, and Sheldon Museum of Art in 2016.[44] Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000 a large survey exhibition and catalogue produced Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2000;[45] Twentieth Century American Sculpture in the White House Garden at The White House, Washington, D.C., in 1995;[46] and "Building on the Legacy: African American Art from the Permanent Collection" at the Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia in 2018. In 2021, Saar curated SeenUNseen at L.A. Louver which coincided with a reading by Myriam J. A. Chancy.[47]

An exhibition at the Ackland Art Museum titled Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar featured Alison along with her mother and sister. This exhibition showcased work from all three artists spanning over 40 years and included fifty mixed media pieces. The overlying themes of the collection were displayed on the wall labels of certain works: "“art, family, and identity”; “interpreting stereotypes and offering alternative histories”; “reconsidering slavery”; “interpreting mixed-race ancestry”; and “revealing the spirit through art.”". This exhibition was centered on the interconnected nature of family and art.[48]

Saar's work Hi, Yella was included in the 1993 Whitney Biennial held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a benchmark in American exhibitions for its critical tone and content.[49][29][50][51]

In 2021, the Benton Museum of Art and Armory Center for the Arts surveyed her work in a joint exhibition titled "Alison Saar: Of Aether and Earthe".[52]

Saar is represented by L.A. Louver in Venice, California.

Awards

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[34][better source needed]

Collections

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Museum of Fine Arts, Houston TX

Publications

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  • Shepherd, Elizabeth. Secrets, Dialogues, Revelations: The Art of Betye and Alison Saar. Los Angeles, CA: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, 1990.
  • Wilson, Judith. "Down to the Crossroads: The Art of Alison Saar." In Callaloo 14 no 1 (Winter 1991): 107–123.
  • Krane, Susan. Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground, Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 1993.
  • Nooter Roberts, Mary, and Alison Saar. Body Politics:The Female Image in Luba Art and the Sculpture of Alison Saar. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 2000.
  • McGee, Julie L. "Field, Boll, and Monument: Toward an Iconography of Cotton in African American Art." In International Review of African American Art 19 no. 1 (2003): 37–48.
  • Lewis, Samella S. African American Art and Artists, revised and expanded 3rd ed., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
  • Farrington, Lisa E. "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude." In Woman's Art Journal 24 no. 2 (Autumn 2003–Winter 2004): 15–23.
  • Dallow, Jessica. "Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood." Feminist Studies 30 no. 1 (2004): 75–113.
  • Dallow, Jessica. Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar. Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with University of Washington Press, 2005.
  • Jones, Leisha. "Women and Abjection: Margins of Difference, Bodies of Art." Visual Culture & Gender 2 (2007): 62–71.
  • Linton, Meg. Alison Saar: STILL .... Los Angeles, CA: Otis College of Art and Design, Ben Maltz Gallery, 2012.
  • Dallow, Jessica. "Departures and Returns: Figuring the Mother's Body in the Art of Betye and Alison Saar." Reconciling Art and Mothering, edited by Rachel Epp Buller. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Dallow, Jessica (2004). "Reclaiming Histories: Betye and Alison Saar, Feminism, and the Representation of Black Womanhood". Feminist Studies. 30 (1): 74–113. JSTOR 3178559.
  2. ^ Saar, Alison. "National Museum of Women in the Arts". Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  3. ^ "Alison Saar". National Museum of Women in the Arts. April 19, 2024.
  4. ^ Finkel, Jori (November 5, 2020). "Alison Saar on Transforming Outrage Into Art". The New York Times.
  5. ^ "Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lesley, and Alison Saar". Artdaily. April 19, 2024.
  6. ^ Clark, Erin. "Alison Saar." Artworks Winter (2008): 33-40. Print.
  7. ^ Dallow, Jessica (2005). Family legacies : the art of Betye, Lezley, and Alison Saar. Saar, Betye., Saar, Lezley, 1953-, Saar, Alison., Matilsky, Barbara C., Saar-Cavanaugh, Tracye., Ackland Art Museum. (1st ed.). Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle and London. ISBN 029598564X. OCLC 60664401.
  8. ^ a b c Krane, Susan (1993). Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art.
  9. ^ "Artists: Alison Saar". Phyllis Kind Gallery. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  10. ^ a b c d Shepherd, Elizabeth (1990). The Art of Betye and Alison Saar. Secrets, Dialogues, Revelations. Los Angeles, CA: Wight Art Gallery, University of California. p. 37. ISBN 0-943739-14-4.
  11. ^ "BOMB Magazine | Thread to the Word: Alison Saar". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  12. ^ Farris, Phoebe (January 1, 1999). Women artists of color: a bio-critical sourcebook of 20th century artists in the Americas. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313303746.
  13. ^ a b Finkel, Jori (November 5, 2020). "Alison Saar on Transforming Outrage Into Art". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  14. ^ a b c Wilson, Judith. "Down to the Crossroads: The Art of Alison Saar." Callaloo 14.1 (1991): 107-23. Web. [1].
  15. ^ Linton, Megan (2012). Alison Saar: STILL ... Los Angeles, CA: Otis College of Art and Design, Ben Maltz Gallery. ISBN 9780930209339. OCLC 849747893.
  16. ^ a b c d e Almino, Elisa Wouk; Brewer, Gary (May 1, 2018). ""I Wanted to Make Art that Told a Story": Alison Saar on Her Eloquent Sculptures". Hyperallergic. Retrieved May 2, 2024.
  17. ^ Stromberg, Matt (February 13, 2017). "Betye and Alison Saar Talk Art at the California African American Museum". Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media Inc. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  18. ^ "Alison Saar | Artist Profile". NMWA. Retrieved March 7, 2024.
  19. ^ "Artist Alison Saar on why she gives power to the Black female body". Los Angeles Times. September 27, 2021. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  20. ^ a b Saar, Alison; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts; Towson University (January 1, 2007). Duped: prints by Alison Saar : Towson University, March 16, 2007-April 14, 2007 : Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, April 20, 2007-August 5, 2007. DE: Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. ISBN 978-0-9785927-2-1. OCLC 166424124.
  21. ^ Nooter Roberts, Mary (2000). Body politics : the female image in Luba art and the sculpture of Alison Saar. Saar, Alison., University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. ISBN 0930741811. OCLC 44518067.
  22. ^ Krane, Susan (1993). Art at the Edge, Alison Saar: Fertile Ground. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art.
  23. ^ Amadour, Ricky (February 5, 2022). "An Interview with Alison Saar". Riot Material. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  24. ^ Saar, Alison (1993). Myth, magic and ritual : figurative work by Alison Saar : [exhibition] February 2-March 7, 1993, Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Center for the Arts. Reading, PA: Freedman Gallery, Albright College.
  25. ^ Nooter Roberts, Mary (2000). Body politics : the female image in Luba art and the sculpture of Alison Saar. Saar, Alison., University of California, Los Angeles. Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Los Angeles, Calif.: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. ISBN 0930741811. OCLC 44518067.
  26. ^ a b Finkel, Jori (November 5, 2020). "Alison Saar on Transforming Outrage Into Art". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
  27. ^ Farrington, Lisa E. (2003). "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude". Woman's Art Journal. 24 (2): 15–23. doi:10.2307/1358782. JSTOR 1358782.
  28. ^ Jamieson, Erin (2018). "Systemic Racism as a Living Text: Implications of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a Fictionalized Narrative of Present and Past Black Bodies". Journal of African American Studies. 22 (4): 333. ISSN 1559-1646.
  29. ^ a b Smith, Roberta (March 5, 1993). "At the Whitney, a Biennial with a social conscience". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  30. ^ "LA Louver Gallery – Home". lalouver.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  31. ^ "Harriet Tubman: Life, Liberty and Legacy". National Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  32. ^ Cascone, Sarah (July 29, 2024). "Alison Saar's Paris Olympics Sculpture Offers an Inviting 'Gathering Space'". Artnet News. Retrieved July 30, 2024.
  33. ^ "BOMB Magazine | Thread to the Word: Alison Saar". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  34. ^ a b "Alison Saar Biography – Alison Saar on artnet". www.artnet.com. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  35. ^ "In Residence | Hood Museum". hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  36. ^ "Alison Saar: Bearing – MoAD Museum of African Diaspora". MoAD Museum of African Diaspora. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved February 25, 2016.
  37. ^ Curiel, Jonathan. "Jemima Unchained: Alison Saar at MoAD". SF Weekly. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  38. ^ "OMI International Arts Center | Alison Saar". www.artomi.org. Archived from the original on December 19, 2016. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  39. ^ Goldman, Edward (November 19, 2014). "Art that Stares, Spits and Screams at You". Huffington Post. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  40. ^ "Alison Saar - Reviews - Art in America". www.artinamericamagazine.com. Archived from the original on March 9, 2017. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  41. ^ "Figge Art Museum – Alison Saar: STILL..." figgeartmuseum.org. Archived from the original on September 20, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  42. ^ "Heavy Ideas with Elements of Play: "Alison Saar: STILL ... ," at the Figge Art Museum February 9 through April 14 | River Cities' Reader". www.rcreader.com. February 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  43. ^ "In Profile | The Studio Museum in Harlem". www.studiomuseum.org. Archived from the original on April 16, 2017. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  44. ^ "The David C. Driskell Center". www.driskellcenter.umd.edu. Archived from the original on January 20, 2018. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  45. ^ Sheri., Berstein; Susan., Fort, Ilene (January 1, 2001). Made in California : art, image, and identity, 1900-2000. Los Angeles County of Art. ISBN 0520227654. OCLC 807296602.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  46. ^ C., Monkman, Betty (January 1, 2000). 20th-century American sculpture in the White House garden. H.N. Abrams. ISBN 0810942216. OCLC 606473684.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  47. ^ "Artist Alison Saar on why she gives power to the Black female body". Los Angeles Times. September 27, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  48. ^ Millett, Ann (May 17, 2006). "Ann Millett. Review of "Family Legacies: The Art of Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar" by Jessica Dallow and Barbara Matilsky". caa.reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2006.45. ISSN 1543-950X.
  49. ^ K., Bhabha, Homi; Elisabeth, Sussmann; York), Biennial Exhibition (1993.03.04-06.20 New (January 1, 1993). Whitney Biennial : 1993 biennial exhibition // Whitney Museum of American Art. Abrams. ISBN 0810925451. OCLC 246148548.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  50. ^ Sussman, Elisabeth (January 1, 2005). "Then and Now: Whitney Biennial 1993". Art Journal. 64 (1): 74–79. doi:10.2307/20068366. JSTOR 20068366.
  51. ^ Hi, Yella, by Alison Saar, photographed at Arizona State University Art Museum
  52. ^ Knight, Christopher (July 27, 2021). "Review: Alison Saar's poetic chronicles of Black womanhood". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
  53. ^ a b "Alison Saar | Biography" (PDF). L.A. Louver. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  54. ^ a b c "Alison Saar | Selected works by exhibition". L.A. Louver. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  55. ^ "United States Artists". Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  56. ^ "Alison Saar". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  57. ^ "Nappy Head Blues". The Indianapolis Museum of Art Collection. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  58. ^ "Works | Alison Saar | People | The MFAH Collections". emuseum.mfah.org. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  59. ^ "Brooklyn Museum". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
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