browngrotta arts will present two recent works by art textile pioneer Ritzi Jacobi in its exhibit at SOFA New York 2010. Since the late 1960s, Jacobi’s work, created first with Peter Jacobi, and since the 80s alone, has produced large tapestry reliefs that underscore the sculptural possibilities of fiber. In these works, Jacobi “draws” in three dimensions, creating light and shadow with fiber cables and bundles of wrapped fibers. Jacobi places viewers in the midst of a “shingled, edgeless terrain,” writes Robert Bell, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the National Gallery of Australia, “allowing us to navigate its complexity with our senses of touch, smell and sight. Without the distraction of a visible or literal narrative, we are encouraged to examine the minutiae of the structure, and become an active partner in Jacobi’s textile architecture as we subconsciously reconnect its discordances.”

Jacobi’s individual and collaborative works are found in museums around the world, including the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy; and Bellerive Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.

We are excited about exhibiting two quite different, yet representative, works by Ritzi Jacobi at SOFA New York. The tension and tactically in her work is always exciting for viewers. In Blue Zone myriad shades and tones of a single color create additional intensity. In Floating Matter there is a complexity of surface and structure — by summarizing cable elements in various techniques, the single particles generate a vivid, pulsating pattern. In either case, technique has become secondary to the overall composition.

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Contemporary Tapestry, SOFA NY, Tapestry, Ritzi Jacobi, Coconut Fiber