Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, presented by Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Description

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, an exhibition exploring the intersection of abstract art and woven textiles over the past century. The nexus of textiles and abstraction embodies key political, social, economic, and aesthetic issues that have shaped the history of the modern era. Beginning in the first decades of the 20th century, the exhibition presents a diverse range of genres, materials, processes, and technologies, which artists have utilized when probing these issues: painting; basketry; photography and film; woven, knitted and felted cloth; costume; attire; and tapestry. Further, it foregrounds the increasingly important role of textile heritages today as affordances in constructing identity, kinship, and community.

Details

On display from Sep 17th, 2023 – Jan 21st, 2024.

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Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

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Woven History Exhibition photo of a woven artwork on left and a hand felted dress on the right
Ed Rossbach, Damask Waterfall, 1977, cotton welting cord, commercial fabric, plastic, satin damask, wrapped, LongHouse Reserve, photo credit: © Charles Benton, courtesy The Artists’ Institute
Andrea Zittel, ‘White Felted Dress #3’ from A-Z Fiber Form Uniforms, 2002, wool, hand-felted, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by David and Susan Gersh. © Andrea Zittel, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Group Info

Featuring over 150 works, the exhibition assembles a roster of transnational and intergenerational artists. Works by pioneering women artists from the historic avent-gardes are put into dialogue with those of contemporary creators: Anni Albers, Jeffrey Gibson, Hannah Hoch, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Ulrike Mueller, Liubov Popova, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Rosemarie Trockel, Andrea Zittel, and others.

Curation Credits

This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Description

Cotton, wool, polyester, silk — fiber is felt in nearly every aspect of our lives. The artists in Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women mastered and subverted the everyday material throughout the twentieth century.

The thirty-four selected artworks piece together an alternative history of American art. Accessible and familiar, fiber handicrafts have long provided a source of inspiration for women. Their ingenuity with cloth, threads, and yarn was dismissed by many art critics as menial labor. The artists in this exhibition took up fiber to complicate this historic marginalization and also revolutionize its import to contemporary art. They drew on personal experiences, particularly their vantage points as women, and intergenerational skills to transform humble threads into resonant and intricate artworks.

Visitation Details

May 31, 2024 – January 5, 2025

Renwick Gallery [website]

Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006 [map]

Open Daily, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

FREE ADMISSION

woven tapestry of a naked woman jumping with her hair flying in the wind, silhouetted against a background of colorful with red and yellow boxes of color
Emma Amos, Winning, 1982, acrylic on linen with hand-woven fabric, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Group Info

Curation

The project is curated by Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator; Mary Savig, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft; and Laura Augustin, curatorial assistant.

Takaezu & Tawney: An Artist is a Poet, at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Description

Takaezu & Tawney: An Artist is a Poet debuts 12 new acquisitions to the Crystal Bridges collection that tell the story of a remarkable friendship between the two artists. The exhibition highlights how these two women shaped craft history in the US by expanding and redefining the possibilities of their preferred mediums: Takaezu in ceramics, Tawney in weaving.

Details

On display from Oct 14th, 2023 – Mar 25th, 2024

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
600 Museum Way, Bentonville, AR 72712

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(479) 418-5700
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stoneware by Toshiko Takaezu, closed forms including spheres and closed rounded cylindrical shapes, different color glazes
Toshiko Takaezu, Crater Moon, 1990s, stoneware, 22 in. diameter; Tall Closed Form, 1970s, stoneware, 24 1/4 x 12 in. diameter; Tall Closed Form, 1974, stoneware, 48 x 9 in. diameter; Tall Closed Form, 1980s, stoneware, 36 1/2 x 11 in. diameter; Alchemy Gold Moon, 1990s, stoneware, 21 in. diameter; Tall Closed Form, 1980s, stoneware, 35 ½ x 7 in. diameter; Form Blue #31, 1990, porcelain, 19 in. x 8 1/4 in. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Purchased with the Fund for Craft, 2022.6, 2022.2, 2022.3, 2022.5, 2022.4, 2021.20. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.

Group Info

The presentation includes seven ceramic sculptures by Takaezu and two major weavings, two drawings and an intimately scaled assemblage sculpture by Tawney. The display showcases the dramatic scale and presence of Tawney’s fiber works and the dynamic glazing and textured surfaces of Takaezu’s varied ceramic forms.

Curation Credits

Curated by Windgate Curator of Craft Jen Padgett

Unravel – Exhibition at the Barbican in London

Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art

Bringing together over 100 artworks by a diverse range of international practitioners to examine the ways in which artists have embraced textiles to communicate multi-layered stories about lived experience; addressing gender, sexuality, colonialism, the movement and displacement of people, ancient forms of knowledge, and more. Spanning intimate hand-crafted works to large-scale sculptural installations, the exhibition presents works that are radical in their form and politics, revealing how textiles have been forces of resistance and repair.

Details

Exhibition Dates

On display from

Address

Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS

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Location

The Art Gallery is located on Level 3 and can be accessed by stairs and lifts from Level G or via the Sculpture Court if coming from outside.

Teresa Margolles, american Juju for the Tapestry of Truth, 2015. © Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich/ Paris. Credit: © Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich/ Paris.
Teresa Margolles, american Juju for the Tapestry of Truth, 2015. © Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich/ Paris. Credit: © Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich/ Paris.

Group Info

Featuring: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Igshaan Adams, Mounira Al Sohl, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Louise Bourgeois, Jagoda Buić, Cian Dayrit, Tracey Emin, Jeffrey Gibson, Sheila Hicks, Teresa Margolles, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Faith Ringgold, Angela Su, Lenore Tawney, Cecilia Vicuña, Billie Zangewa, and more.

Curation Credits

This exhibition is co-curated by the Barbican, London and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam where the exhibition will be on show from September 2024.

Tawney’s studio environment on view – Kohler Arts Center’s Art Preserve

Lenore Tawney Installation
Objects from the Lenore Tawney Collection displayed at the Art Preserve, Sheboygan, WI. John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection, gift of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation and Kohler Foundation Inc.

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center worked closely with the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation to acquire hundreds of key components from the artist’s last studio environment in 2019, with assistance from Kohler Foundation, Inc. The 486-piece collection includes artwork, collages, assemblages, furniture, and supplies.

An installation of Tawney’s studio environment is on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s Art Preserve, which opened in 2021 and provides the public and researchers year-round access to an unparalleled collection of art environments that now includes works by more than 30 artists.

Hours
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Thursday: 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

Location
John Michael Kohler Arts Center: 608 New York Avenue, Sheboygan, WI
Art Preserve: 3636 Lower Falls Road, Sheboygan, WI

Free admission at both locations

Art Preserve

Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe featured in the 2020 Milwaukee Film Festival

Movie poster for Lenore Tawney - Mirror of the Universe
Image Credit: Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe documentary poster. Designed by Monica Lazalier, 2020.

The Milwaukee Film Festival starts Thursday October 15, and this year’s lineup includes the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s short documentary Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe. The festival is being held virtually this year, so the 197 selected films will be streaming online October 15-29. The documentary features interviews with collaborators from the Mirror of the Universe exhibition series and accompanying publication: Glenn Adamson, Indira Allegra, Julia Bland, kg, Judith Leemann, Anne Lindberg, Kathleen Nugent Mangan, Michael Milano, Karen Patterson, Sheila Pepe, Mary Savig, Shannon R. Stratton, and Florica Zaharia. It was directed by Valerie Lazalier and Andrew Swant.

For additional information about the film and the festival, see Milwaukee Film Festival.