Textiles get their moment in art world spotlight at Frieze London
FROM weaving to embroider y, t he world of text iles – of ten la rgely ignored at Western contemporar y art showcases – took centre stage last weekend at the “Frieze London” art fa ir.
The prestigious annual showcase, held this year i n Regents Park from Thursday to Sunday, organised a new section ca lled Woven devoted entirely to textile fibres.
It feat ures eig ht solo a r tists of di f ferent generat ions f rom a host of count r ies, i ncluding Bra zi l, t he Phi lippines, China, India a nd Madagascar, who tack le perhaps sur pr isingly topica l t hemes.
“[Weaving] had a lways been a centra l part of artistic practice ever y where i n t he world,” curator Cosmin Costinas said, explaining t he exhibition’s name.
“But indeed it was margina lised because it was associated with women,” he added, noting “eurocentric” perspectives t hat t he craf t was largely non-Western had a lso f uelled its sidelining.
For Cosmin, it was a chance to celebrate textile arts while weaving issues like Brita in’s “unsolved colonia l legacy”, with ot her contemporar y matters such as sex ism and ethnocentrism.
“There was a strong intention to do something t hat responds to the current moment, the current mess the UK finds itself,” he said, referring to t he polit ica l turmoil engulfing Britain over Brex it.
Woven br ings toget her a r t ist s l i ke Mrina lini Mukherjee (1949-2015), a n India n scu lptor who used dyed and woven hemp, and Pacita Abad (1946-2004), a n American-Fi lipino a r t ist renow ned for merging t radit iona l tex t i les wit h contemporar y paint ing.
Abad’s Trapunto canvases, festooned with sequins, shells and swatches of precious textiles, among ot her t hings, ta ke on a t hree dimensional qualit y.
‘It’s been changing’
“For many people it was considered craf t versus art,” said Amrita Jhaveri, owner of the Jhaveri Contemporar y galler y in Mumbia, which presents t he weavings of Monika Correa at the Frieze.
“But it’s been changing for some time now.
“The art world is look ing outside t he k ind of formal art practice to ot her areas for insta nce ceramics, or textiles,” she added.
Their increasing recognition on t he internationa l art stage has a lso coincided with ongoing reinvention.
Chitra Ganesh, a 44-yearWoven old Indian-American v isua l artist, noted “a la rger conceptual approach to bringing toget her disparate iconographies, histories, look ing for way to connect the ver y old and the ver y new”.
Her feminist works a re f ul l of mythologica l connotat ions while incor porat ing “mass produced materia ls” such as indust r ia l bags of potatoes, f ur a nimal sk ins.
‘A form of protest’
fa l ls a nd
Angela Su, a Hong Kong artist known for her scientific drawings and performance works, showcases a series of works inspired by the months of pro-democracy protests sweeping her home city and former British colony.
The centra l painting depicts a brain to evoke “t he schizophrenic identit y of Hong Kong”.
“We don’t know if we’re Chinese or Hong Kong or British, we’re t his mix of ever y t hing,” Su said.
The artists was a lso eager to show that sewing could be modern and “a form of protest” as well as a traditiona l craf t.
One of her pieces ex hibits lips sewn toget her wit h hair to show “the suppression of freedom of speech”.
Cian Dayrit, a 30-year-old Filipino multimedia art ist, a lso tack led contemporar y themes i n his works, using embroider y to comment on colonia lism and its present day legacies.
He created idea list political messages and maps of modern cities with textiles and colourful threads, based on archiva l photographs of Filipinos ta ken i n t he early 19th centur y by an American sett ler.
“This whole aspirationa l project of development and t he f uture is actua lly depossessing marginalised communities,” he said on his motives behind t he works.
“The inter vention is a lso exposing t he ills of t he neocolonia l present.”