Category: Museums

Exhibition News: “Sleight of Hand” at the Denver Art Museum through December 31st

May 9, 2011 0 Comment

Curated by Alice Zrebiec, Sleight of Hand features 14 contemporary artists whose work  challenge our powers of perception. The artists in this exhibition are among those who push time-honored textile techniques, including embroidery, quilting, weaving, netting, crochet, coiling, and ikat, to unexpected extremes and who invent new methods to achieve their creative vision.The exhibition includes sculptures, paintings and imagery produced over the last 30 years. Zrebiec calls the artists in the exhibition — Magdalena Abakanowicz, Olga de Amaral, Arlette Gosiewski, Tracy Krumm, Jane Mathews, Rebecca Medel, Norma Minkowitz, Cindy Hickok, Gugger Petter, Carol Shinn, Polly Barton, Lia Cook, Carol Eckert and Kay Khan — “alchemists” for their ability to change materials as diverse as cotton, newspaper, sand, and gold leaf into astonishing works of textile art.
If you are able to visit DAM before July 10th, you can also see Shape & Spirit: Selections from the Lutz Bamboo Collection which showcases more than 200 woven bamboo baskets, carved figures, and everyday tools that capture the spirit and cultural character of their makers.

Denver Art Museum
100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Denver, CO 80204-2788
(720) 865-5000 ‎

Exhibition News: “Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen” at the Design Museum in Denmark, through August 7th

May 4, 2011 0 Comment

Spread of Plates from Henriksen’s exhibition in Design Museum Denmark

Ane Henriksen’s work is the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen through August 07, 2011.  Henriksen “possesses a very rare degree of insight into how to utilize and master her medium.” observes Bodil Busk Laursen, Director of the Museum in the exhibition catalog of the same name, Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen. “In her pieces, there is an internal coherence, where the choice of materials, technique, and structure constitutes a most significant aspect of the work’s ultimate expression.”  Henriksen has been creating pictorial wall tapestries for 25 years. In doing so, the artist  “…with sensitive seismographic precision, has caught hold of painful nodes in the world, in nature and in human existence. Through these pieces, she has managed to redeem experiences that nobody evades,” Laursen observes.

BLACK & BLUE Ane Henriksen, silk warp, linen weft, weaving, 94.5″ x 72.75″; 246.5cm x 185.5cm, 2003

Henriksen “is building a bridge between personally endured pain and what has been learned from an existential and universally human experience,” writes Louise Manzanti, another of the catalog’s essayists.  Henriksen’s work, Black & Blue, is an example, as the artists explains: “A tie, a deep human intimacy, smashed to pieces. My aching, broken heart and body, drawn with a desperate line, like a bad tempered umbilical cord. Or alternatively an expression of hope, the fluttering of a butterfly, out into the intangible new space.”

a view from Ane Henriksen’s exhibition in Design Museum Denmark

Her installation work, A Swaddling Room, is “[A] holy communion consisting of 13 printed male chests constitutes a swaddling room for all the women who are searching and longing. A series of platters adds a kind of longing footnote from songs that creep in, remain — and resound, around and around…” Henriksen’s solo exhibition has been high on the Museum of Art & Design’s wish list for some time, according to Director Laursen. For those who cannot see it in Copenhagen, the exhibition catalog, Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen, is available from browngrotta arts. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/b44.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

detail from Ane Henriksen’s catalog Lady Sings the Blues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Sings the Blues: Ane Henriksen
Danish Museum of Art & Design
Bredgade 68 / 1260 København K
Phone 33 18 56 56
Email: info@kunstindustrimuseet.dk
http://designmuseum.dk/en/udstillinger/aktuelle-saerudstillinger/lady-sings-the-blues

Summer Stock: Artist Lectures, Classes, Workshops and Walkthroughs

April 29, 2011 0 Comment

Here’s a list of opportunities to connect this summer with the artists that browngrotta arts promotes and information on an interesting Archaeological Textile Course at Bryn Mawr:

 

Reflective Haze by Lewis Knauss, photo by Tom and Carter Grotta

Lewis Knauss
August 22nd to August 26th
Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO
http://www.AndersonRanch.org
“Advanced Fiber Workshop”

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda by Sheila Hicks, photo by Tom Grotta

Sheila Hicks
May 5th, 10:30 a.m.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
http://www.icaphila.orgWalkthrough: Sheila Hicks: 50 Years

Glacial Planes by Nancy Moore Bess, photo by Tom and Carter Grotta

Nancy Moore Bess
April 29th to May 10th
Snow Farm, Williamsburg MA
http://www.snowfarm.org
“Japanese Inspired Baskets”

June 5th to 11th
Snow Farm, Williamsburg MA
http://www.snowfarm.org
“Japanese Inspired Baskets”

June 24th to 28th
Peters Valley Craft Center, Layton NJ
http://www.petersvalley.org
“Japanese Packaging: Paper, Baskets & More”

July 9th and 10th
Garage Annex School (GAS), Easthampton MA
http://www.garageannexschool.com
“Japanese Packaging: Seeking a Narrative”

July 17th, 12 to 3 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA
http://www.mfa.org/programs
Artist Demonstration, “Bamboo and Tea”
Exhibition: “An Unspoken Dialogue with Japanese Tea”

August 12th
Berkshire Botanical Garden, Stockbridge MA
http://www.berkshirebotanical.org
“Wrapping Your Garden: Herbs, Flowers & Veggies”

Mandella by Pat Campbell, photo by Tom grotta

Pat Campbell
July 25th to July 29th
Waynflete School, Portland, ME
http://www.waynflete.org/podium/default.aspx?t=124856“Weaving Works” for Grades 3-8

Kayak by Chris Drury, photo by Chris Drury

Chris Drury
May 3rd
Tagore Festival, Dartington, Devon, UK
http://www.tagorefestival.com
“Artist’s Talk”

Big Question, By Gyöngy Laky, photo by Tom Grotta

Gyöngy Laky
May 26th, 6 p.m.
The Textile Museum. Washington D.C.
http://www.textilemuseum.org/green
Lecture: “Geometric Disturbances”

July 17th to July 29th
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine
http://www.haystack-mtn.org/workshops.php
Visiting Artist

Tall blue tapestry

AZUL Y NEGR by Carolina Yrarrázaval Photo by Tom Grotta

Carolina Yrarrázaval
August 15th to August 21st
Santiago/Valparaiso/Ilsa Negra, Chile
http://www.yrarrazaval.com
“Pre-Columbian Textile Techniques Workshop”
click for details

 

For extra credit, at Bryn Mawr
June 5th to June 11th
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA
cipstextiles@gmail.com
“Textile Archea: CIPS Archaeological Textile Course”
(Centers on the tools and techniques employed in the analysis of
archaeological textile materials of ancient Peru and introduces students to the archaeology of the Andes.)

Eco-Art News: Green: the Color and the Cause at the Textile Museum in D.C.

April 20, 2011 0 Comment

Gyongy Laky 101L ALTERATIONS apple, grapevine, nails, wire, 58″ x 68″ x 3″ 2008

This Earth Day, visit the Textile Museum’s new exhibition, Green: the Color and the Cause, in person or the gas-free way: online http://www.textilemuseum.org/green. The exhibition includes 34 artists, including Gyöngy Laky and Jiro Yonezawa. These artists work in natural, eco-friendly and repurposed materials and/or create works that reference diminishing resources, species extinction and the like. Online, there is an image for each artist, along with a description and in some cases, links to videos in which the artists describe their work, show their process or their inspiration. You can browse by artist name or by theme: The Color, Nature, Global Choices, Interconnectedness, Repurposing, Sustainability or Adaptation. There’s also a slide show about the history of the Green Movement in this country. The exhibition runs through September 11, 2011. The Textile Museum is located at: 2320 S Street, NW, Washington, DC 20008. For more info call: 202-667-0441. Also, online at http://browngrotta.com/Pages/earthday.php, Eco-Art for Earth Day, through May 1st.

Dispatches: Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

November 23, 2010 0 Comment

It was the well worth the wait.  The first museum retrospective of Sheila Hicks‘ remarkable career has opened at the Addison Gallery and will travel to additional venues in the next few years, including the Institute of Contemporary Art of Philadelphia next March 2011 and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC in October 2011.

Addison Gallery

The Addison is an ideal showcase for the expansive exhibition, which includes more than 100 works, journals, videos and photographs. The classic architecture of the gallery provides an ideal counterpoint for Hicks’ brilliantly colored soft sculptures, for the more formal panels of stitched medallions and linen pony tails and for the minimes, framed miniature works, from various decades that are featured throughout the exhibition. When we arrived at sundown, the building was bathed in golden light an inviting complement to La Mémoire, the brilliantly colored series of wrapped cords to the left of the entrance and Bamian, the larger jewel-toned installation that can be seen in the distance in the gallery down the corridor.

Entrance to Sheila Hicks Exhibition at the Addison Gallery. Photo by Carter Grotta

The exhibition is comprehensive, addressing the remarkable reach of Hicks’ artistic life, which has included learning sewing and embroidery as a child in Nebraska, studying painting with Josef Albers at Yale, weaving in South America on a Fulbright and site commissions for public spaces including the Ford Foundation and Georg Jensen in New York, the Target corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, the Fuji City Cultural Center in Japan and the Banco de Mexico headquarters, with architect Ricardo Legorreta. In addition, Hicks has also published a magazine, created designs for commercial production, taught, founded workshops in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa, worked in Morocco and India, pursued interior and exterior architecture, sculpture, photography, book design and writing. To unravel this extraordinary range, the exhibition focuses on five related fields of inquiry: miniature weavings and drawings, site commissions for public spaces, industrially produced textiles and workshop hand-productions, bas reliefs and sculptures, and process works made of recuperated textiles, clothing and other found objects.

View from the top of the stairs: Sheila Hicks exhibition at the Addison Gallery. Photo by Carter Grotta

Regardless of the period, the works in the exhibit are strikingly original. We found ourselves constantly checking dates as 40-year-old works appeared as fresh as those made last year. The conclusion,  after viewing Sheila Hicks; 50 Years, is inescapable: Hicks has reinvented textile tradition, and, in the process, transformed the terrain that links art, design and architecture.

The exhibition is at the Addison through February 27, 2011 Addison Gallery of Art, Philips Academy, 80 Main Street, Andover, Massachusetts, 01810; 978 749 4000; http://www.andover.edu/Museums/Addison/Exhibitions/
OnViewNow/hicks/Pages/default.aspx
. We hope to see it in a least one of the venues that follows.  Hicks work has always been about inhabiting space; we’d like to see this exhibition reconfigured.

The exquisitely designed and lavishly illustrated accompanying volume from Yale Press,  Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, by Joan Simon and Addison Curator, Susan C. Faxon, with an essay by Whitney Chadwick, documents the full extent of Hicks’ work, from exquisite miniature weavings to major sculptural pieces to such large-scale commissions as The Four Seasons of Fuji.  It is available from browngrotta.com.

Dispatches: Chicago’s Art institute, Contemporary Fiber Art from the Permanent Collection

November 17, 2010 0 Comment

Carter Taking Pictures on the entrance ramp that leads to the art institute

We made a hurried trip to the Art Institute on the

last day of SOFA to see Contemporary Fiber Art: A Selection from the Permanent Collection, the inaugural exhibition in the reopened Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries, which were closed for five years during the construction of the Modern Wing. We walked there in the glorious morning sunshine, through a corner of Millennium Park, and entered the Institute from the bridge. Heading down to the textile galleries feels a bit like entering the basement, but once inside, the spaces are light and airy.

Posters for the two fiber exhibits photo by Carter Grotta

The holdings of the Department of Textiles at the Art Institute comprise more than 66,000 sample swatches and 14,000 textiles ranging from 300 BC to the present. Extensive holdings of ecclesiastical textiles, 16th- and 17th-century velvets, 18th-century silks, 18th-20th-century printed fabrics, and lace are included in the department’s impressive collection of European textiles. Other notable holdings include American quilts and woven coverlets, historical fashion accessories, dress and furnishing fabrics and Japanese and Chinese holdings.

Entering the Exhibition facing “Red Doors” by Robert D. Sailors photo by Carter Grotta

Helena Hernmarck’s Mu1 and and its maquette next to Si Rothko M’etait Conte by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette photo by Carter Grotta

The Collection also includes more than 400 textiles and fiber art works from the 20th Century. These are not freestanding fiber works, sculptures vessels or baskets, for the most part, but wall hangings and ceiling-hung pieces. Sixty-one of these pieces are currently on display. Nonetheless it is an impressive grouping. The usual suspects are here – Lenore Tawney, Sheila Hicks and Claire Zeisler, Peter Collingwood and the Poles, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Zofia Butrymowicz and Jolanta Owidzka. But there are some surprises. Red Doors, by Robert D. Sailors, which graces the entrance is a show stopper. The Cynthia Schira that is included is an excellent piece.  Helena (Barynina) Hernmarck’s 1965 abstract tapestry Mu1 is enhanced by the powerful painted maquette that is displayed alongside. The Mariette Rousseau-Vermette work, Si Rothko M’etait Conté (If Rothko Himself Had Told Me a Story)(which we assisted a client in donating) was luminous. We were delighted to see the tapestries  floating off the wall, as we recommend, giving added dimension to the works. One quibble, the works in the cases in the conference room, which include a piece by Scott Rothstein, need to be better lit. Maybe motion detection lights would work, which would minimize energy use and uv exposure but still enable the works to be seen when viewers enter the room.

The items selected work well together, as curator Christa C. Mayer Thurman, emerita of the Department of Textiles, intended. The exhibition’s stated aim — to explore how fiber art has developed as an art form from the middle of the 20th Century through today and illustrate how the flexibility and variability of the medium encouraged artists to explore the potential of different fibers and methods — has certainly been achieved.

View of exhibit centered around a work by Claire Zeisler photo by Carter Grotta

 

Exhibit News

October 25, 2010 0 Comment

This November, the Art Institute of Chicago, browngrotta arts and the Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) exposition will offer a host of events celebrating international art textiles and fiber sculpture, including four exhibitions, a panel discussion and three artist talks.

Crystalline-Structures by Ethel Stein

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Contemporary Fiber Art: A Selection from the Permanent Collection
The Art Institute of Chicago, Galleries 55, 57-59
through February 2011

The exhibition will explore how fiber art has developed as a contemporary art form and will feature 61 works by 52 artists including Peter Collingwood, Lissy Funk, Ethel Stein and Jolanta Owidzka as well as artists with strong local ties such as Claire Zeisler and Lenore Tawney,  who studied sculptor Alexander Archipenko in Chicago.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
June Wayne’s Narrative Tapestries: Tidal Waves, DNA, and the Cosmos Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 50
through February 2011

A pioneer in the revival of lithography during the early 1960s and a relentless explorer of the possibilities of paint, June Wayne has been a major figure in the Los Angeles art scene for decades. This exhibit will bring together 11 dynamic tapestries created between 1971 and 1974 based on Wayne’s innovative graphic designs Magisterial in their conception and extraordinary in their refined beauty and execution, these works showcase not only Wayne’s unique vision but the rich possibilities of uniting contemporary ideas and a centuries-old medium.

 

PODROZ (Journey) from the Kolodia series Agnieszka Ruszczynska-Szafranska

Thursday, November 4, 2010 Special exhibit: for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago
Booth S 114
Opening Night Preview 7-9
through November 7, 2010

This special exhibit features 21 works by more than a dozen of the Eastern European textile artists introduced in Chicago in the 1970s by legendary dealers Anne and Jacques Baruch. The couple traveled regularly to Central and Eastern Europe to bring art back from behind the Iron Curtain. Their goal was to broaden exposure to art that Jacques Baruch once described as “the finest work of tomorrow…the new blood,” including work by  Magdalena AbakanowiczZofia Butrymowicz. The exhibition is cosponsored by the Baruch Foundation, browngrotta arts of Wilton, Connecticut and The Art Fair Company, sponsors of SOFA Chicago. SOFA opens at 11 on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th and at 12 on Sunday, November 7th.  It closes on the 7th at 6.p.m. For more information visit:http://www.sofaexpo.com

Thursday, November 4, 2010
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Booth 120
browngrotta arts
Opening Night Preview 7-9
through November 7, 2010

browngrotta arts, which has focused on promoting fiber art for more than 22 years, will present a varied display of contemporary art textiles from Japan, Europe the US and the UK at SOFA Chicago. SOFA opens at 11 on Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th and at 12 on Sunday, November 7th.  It closes on the 7th at 6.p.m. For more information visit:

http://browngrotta.com/index.php

Friday, November 5, 2010
Fiber Art: Unraveling Some Threads
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Room 327
10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Illustrated, individual presentations by fiber artist Margaret Cusack, Cindy Hickock, Kiyomi Iwata, and Donna Rosenthal.

Friday, November 5, 2010
Panel Discussion: Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Room 324

2 p.m.
The panel will feature Christa C. Mayer Thurman, Emerita, the Art Institute of Chicago, chair and curator of the Department of Textiles (1967 – 2009), who founded the Textile Society of the Art Institute of Chicago and initiated the 20th Century textile collection at the Art Institute, collector Fern Grauer, now President of The Textile Society of the Art Institute and Barbara Kalwajtys, former Assistant to Anne Baruch. It will be moderated by Rhonda Brown, co-curator of browngrotta arts.

Christa Thurman and Anne Baruch

Friday, November 5, 2010
Catalog Signing: Advocates for Art: Polish and Czech Fiber Artists from the Anne and Jacques Baruch
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago
Booth S 114
3:30 – 4:30.pm.

Christa C. Mayer Thurman, Emerita, the Art Institute of Chicago, chair and curator of the Department of Textiles (1967 – 2009), founded The Textile Society of the Art Institute of Chicago and initiated the 20th Century textile collection there. Mr. Thurman for which she wrote the introductory essay.

Circle Boat by Jane Balsgaard

Saturday, November 6, 2010
“Addicted to Nature”
Jane Balsgaard
Artist’s Talk
and Book Signing
Navy Pier
SOFA Chicago
Booth 120
2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Danish Artist Jane Balsgaard, will speak at browngrotta arts booth about her airy boat sculptures of twigs and handmade plant paper and sign copies of the book, STAR SHIP AND SKY SEA an exhibition by Inge Lise Westman and JANE Balsgaard.

SHEATHE by Jennifer Falck Linseen

SHEATHE by Jennifer Falck Linseen

Saturday, November 6, 2010
“Fire & Emotion”  
Jennifer Falck Linssen
Artist’s Talk
Navy Pier, SOFA Chicago, Booth 120
From 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Colorado artist Jennifer Falck Linssen
will talk about her Fire & Emotion series of katagami-style hand-carved paper “stencils,” which reflects the form and shape of human emotions and interactions.

Technorati Tags:

Art, Art Installation, Artist Lectures, Contemporary Tapestry, Helena Hernmarck, Museums, Tapestry, SOFA CHicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jacques and and Baruch, Eastern European Textile, Jane Balsgaard, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Lenore Tawney, Ethel Stein

 

Exhibit News: Opportunities to see the work of artists represented by browngrotta arts abound this summer from New York to New Jersey to the Netherlands

June 13, 2010 0 Comment

Information Revisited: the Encyclopedia Britannica Project
Belskie Museum of Art & Science
280 High St
Closter, New Jersey 07624201.768.0286
Museum hours – Sat and Sun 1-5; other times by appointment

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Wendy Wahl Detail

 

extended through August 1st, 2010

Thirty-one international artists, including Wendy Wahl (US), transform books of words into works of art.

Holland Paper Biennial 2010
Museum Rijswijk
Herenstraat 67
2282 BR Rijswijk
070.390.36.17
CODA Apeldoorn
Vosselmanstraat 2997311 CL Apeldoorn055.526.84.00
http://www.museumryswyk.nl/hpb2010/hpb2010en.html

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Noriko Takamiya Detail

 

from June 8th through September 12, 2010

The 2010 Holland Paper Biennial is an exhibition of work by international paper artists taking place in two museums. A special selection of papers and books will be added to the usual range of products in the museum shop for the duration of the exhibition in Museum Rijswijk. The traditional paper fair will be held in the courtyard at the front of Museum Rijswijk and in the Oude Kerk (Old Church) opposite on Sunday September 12th. Jewellry and collage made of paper get special attention at this biennial. Closely related to these jewellery pieces, is the work of Noriko Takamiya (Japan). Using the traditional Japanese craft of basketry as her starting point, she develops new forms and techniques. She winds layers of thin strips of paper around each other, interweaving them into Escher-like objects. Three artists, Desiree de Baar (the Netherlands), Christophe Piallat (US) and Birgit Knoechl (Germany), have been asked to create installations using the dramatic architecture of the CODA building.


The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft
Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton, MA 02301
508.588.6000

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Lawrence LaBianca Detail

 

through February 6, 2011

Curated by Fo Wilson, this exhibition steps beyond the boundaries that currently exist among technology, art, and craft. The New Materiality looks at a growing development in the United States toward the use of digital technologies as a new material and means of expression in craft. Contributing artists include: Wendy Maruyama (San Diego, CA), Nathalie Mieback (Brookline, MA), Brian Boldon (Minneapolis,MA), Shaun Bullens and Cat Mazza (Providence, RI), Sonya Clark (Richmond, VA), Lia Cook (Berkeley, CA), Susan Working (Snowmass Village,CO), Mike and Maaike, E.G. Crichton, Donald Fortescue and Lawrence LaBianca (San Francisco, CA), Christy Matson (Chicago, IL), Tim Tate (Mt. Rainier, WA), and Mark Zirpel (Seattle, WA).


(Re) Fashioning Fiber
Green Spaces NY
394 Broadway, 5th Flr
New York, NY 10013
646.783.8616

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Ceca Georgieva Detail

 

through August 13, 2010

Curated by environmental artist Abigail Doan, the works in this exhibit offer up new ways of thinking about “fiber” as a basis for how we might (re)fashion our lives, our patterns of consumption, and our personal style. Among the Invited artists and designers include: Abigail Doan, Atefeh Khas, Brece Honeycutt, Abigail McEnroe, Kaori Yamazaki, Mackenzie Frere, Melissa Kirgan, Meiling Chen, Michelle Vitale Loughlin, Renata Mann, Sibyll Kalff, Tara St. James, Tara Goodarzy, Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard and Ceca Georgieva (Bulgaria), who has creted jewelry of vegatation.


On View: Artists In Residence and Toe River Potters
The Bascom
Atrium and Education Gallery
323 Franklin Road
Highlands, NC 28741
828.526.4949
http://www.thebascom.org/future-exhibitions/5-exhibitions/22-future-exhibitions

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Lewis Knauss Detail


from July 24th through August 22, 2010

Artists in Residence: Matt Liddle, printmaker and bookarts; Holly Hanessian, ceramics; Lewis Knauss, fiber; Mira Lehr, mixed media; Tom Turner, ceramist; Phillip Garrett, painter. Toe River Potters: Norm Schulmann, Claudia Dunaway, Ken Sedberry, Mark Peters and Courtney Martin. Also at the Bascom: Stick Works: Patrick Dougherty’s Environmental Sculpture.


Faces & Mazes: Lia Cook
Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Avenue (Dundas St. W & University Ave., St. Patrick subway)
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 2H5
Canada
416.599.5321
http://www.textilemuseum.ca/apps/index.cfm?page=exhibition.detail&exhId=311

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Lia Cook Detail

 

through October 17, 2010

Faces & Mazes is part of Person Place Thing, which also features exhibits of the work of David R. Harper and Steven Schofield.  Cook, Harper and Schofield make work that is physically demanding and large in scale — wall-sized weavings of children’s and doll’s faces; sculptures of embroidered and taxidermied animals; and massive human figures made of textiles frozen in time. They draw the viewer into woven, embroidered and sewn narratives of nature, identity and history. As the faces in Lia Cook’s weavings fragment, a perceptual shift occurs, moving through a place of transition and ambiguity to reveal the physical, tactile nature of the constructed image.


13th International Triennial of Tapestry, Łódź 2010
Central Museum of Textiles
ul. Piotrkowska 282, 93 – 034
Łódź, Poland
042. 683.26.84

through October 31, 2010

Among the artists invited to participate are Nancy Koenigsberg (US); Aleksandra Stoyanov (Israel) and Anda Klancic (Slovania), whose work was “highly commended: by the interntional jury that includes artist Kyoko Kumai (Japan).


Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection
Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY  10019
212.299.7777
http://collections.madmuseum.org/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=seealso&profile=exhibitions&searchdesc=Current Exhibitions&searchstring=Current/,/greater than/,/0/,/false/,/true&action=searchrequest&s

through September 12, 2010

Intertwined provides an international look at contemporary basket making, offering insight into the evolution of the basket from a useful object to a work of art and challenging the notion of what defines a basket. The exhibition includes more than 70 traditional and non-traditional baskets.  Among the artists whose work is included are:  Ed Rossbach, Katherine Westphal, Sally Black, Kiyomi Iwata, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Carol Eckert, John McQueen, John Garrett, Ferne Jacobs and Norma Minkowitz.

Knitted, Knotted, Netted at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, NJ

October 25, 2009 2 Comments
Hunterdon.jpg

We attended the opening of Knitted, Knotted, Netted at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in Clinton, New Jersey last week. The Museum is a picturesque venue, presenting changing exhibitions of contemporary art and design in a 19th century stone mill that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The town of Clinton offers speciality shops featuring antiques, quilts, country furnishings and, intriguingly in one case, “Things We Like.”

Norma Minkowitz, Kazue Honma, Noriko Tanikawa, Hisako Sekijima

Norma Minkowitz, Kazue Honma, Noriko Tanikawa, Hisako Sekijima

Knitted, Knotted, Netted includes work by 12 artists. The techniques highlighted in Knitted, Knotted, Netted have ancient lineages and have seen a resurgence through their use by contemporary artists. Each of these methods involves the looping of a thread or cord, differentiating them from braiding and weaving, in which elements may interlace but not necessarily loop through each other. The artists in this exhibit employ the techniques of the title in diverse ways and in widely differing materials, varied in size, shape and color. The two- and three-dimensional artworks in the exhibit use not only plant and animal materials but also industrial and synthetic materials, creating looped structures never envisioned in earlier contexts. The highlights for us: the work by the four artists represented by browngrotta arts, of course — three strong works by Norma Minkowitz and a work of edgeworthia bark by Hisako Sekijima, grouped with works by two of her students, Kazue Honma and Noriko Takamiya — and also, The Crowded Planet series by Carol Westfall. Westfall says that the series is composed of hundreds of tiny “men,” the stick figures we drew as children. “If you take the top two arms and pull them together you create the kanji character for man, nin or jin or hito,” she explains. “I compress all these tiny ‘men’ together and form the ball which is This Crowded Planet.”

Carol Westfall's The Crowded Planet Series

Carol Westfall’s The Crowded Planet Series

The exhibit, at 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, NJ, 908-735-8415, continues through January 24, 2010.

 

Guest Post: Nancy Moore Bess

September 27, 2009 1 Comment

A SINGULAR VOICE – LESLEY DILL

by Nancy Moore Bess

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Click Guest Posts tab to read about Nancy’s visit to Lesley Dill’s traveling exhibition.

Lesley Dill (b. 1950)
Dress of Inwardness
2006
white painted bronze, unique
Collection of Karen and Robert Duncan, Lincoln, NE