Kudos to the Museum of Modern Art for its recent herculean effort at reconfiguring its galleries to include the works of more women, Latinos, African-Americans, Asians and other overlooked artists to better reflect the multicultural society in which we live. Kudos as well for changing the way they present the art. Instead of sticking to a single discipline as a way of organizing and showing their vast Modernist collection, they have chosen to mix media. Going forward, painting, sculpture, architecture, design, etc. will be curated together.
A big highlight in their reimagined space is a textile exhibit on the third floor in The Philip Johnson Galleries entitled “Taking a Thread for a Walk”.
Here is what the MoMA team has to say about this exhibit:
“Anni Albers wrote in 1965, ‘Just as it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of ever-extending relationships . . . traced back to the event of a thread.’ Such events quietly brought about some of modern art’s most intimate and communal breakthroughs, challenging the widespread marginalization of weaving as “women’s work.” In Albers’s lifetime, textiles became newly visible as a creative discipline—one closely interwoven with the practices of architecture, industrial design, drawing, and sculpture. A key driver for the development of new languages for woven forms was the emergence of interdisciplinary educational institutions such as the Bauhaus school of art and design, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Black Mountain College. These schools championed experiential learning—or learning through doing—an approach that had been in part inspired by progressive early-childhood teaching models of the 19th century. True to its title, this exhibition takes a thread for a walk among ancient textile traditions, early-20th-century design reform movements, and industrial materials and production methods. Featuring adventurous combinations of natural and synthetic fibers and spatially dynamic pieces that mark the emergence of a more sculptural approach to textile art beginning in the 1960s, this show highlights the fluid expressivity of the medium.” -MoMA
Organized by Juliet Kinchin, Curator, and Andrew Gardner, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design.
Photo above: Aurélia Muñoz, Beige Eagle, 1977. (Detail) Macramé with hand-dyed sisal and jute yarn.
As enthusiastic as we are of the textiles on exhibit at MoMa, we are also really excited about our own, and are proud to be working with amazingly talented weavers. Case in point, check out the work of our Handloom Ribbon Stripe Runner and Handloom Offset Stripe Cape:
Amazing post, bravo xxx
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