Maren Hassinger studied dance from a young age. In the late 1960s, her practice transitioned from performance to sculpture, while continuing to examine principles of movement, energy, and space. Over time, her focus turned to collapsing these genres into the physical space in and around her sculptures.

Hassinger was among the first class of students to graduate from the fiber arts MFA program at the University of California in Los Angeles. During her time there, she began working with wire rope and steel cable, later incorporating tree branches. This yielded the series of works known as Monuments. Striking a material balance between the natural and the forged, these works are often installed with the assistance of volunteers recruited locally by the artist. The shared physical experience of harvesting and weaving the branches, along with the artist’s relationship to the foundries and production facilities that fabricate each of the structural frames she designs, allows these sculptures to serve as a meditation on labor, collaboration, and communion.

Hassinger’s work has been the subject of exhibitions at the Studio Museum Harlem, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, among many others. Hassinger is the Director Emeritus of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute’s College of Art in Baltimore, where she served as the school’s Director for over twenty years.