Let Textiles Talk!

Let Textiles Talk. Six Textiles Unravelled is an exhibition recently opened at the Stedelijk (on until 20 March 2022). Communication does not have to be verbal to be valid and textiles remind us of this fact. Let Textiles Talk. Six Textiles Unravelled combines works by well-known artists, such as Sheila Hicks, Etel Adnan, Karel Appel, Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, Jean Lurçat with a community art project initiated by an Egyptian architect Ramses Wissa Wassef and his wife Sophie Habib Gorgi. Wissa Wassef’s and Gorgi’s Art Center began in Harrania, a village south of Cairo. Stedelijk’s exhibition includes 6 representative pieces along with short descriptions behind their artistic approaches. The project’s ambition was to succeed both in providing craft education for children and in getting recognition from prominent art institutions. The Art Center exists to this day and is known worldwide for its tapestry workshops.

The exhibition is structured in seven rooms. Instead of focusing on a chronological timeline of textile art, the show is organised thematically around five themes: experimental fibers, influence abroad, belonging to the artworld, globalizing textiles and materiality in the museum. There are no eye-catching colour gates, as in the exhibition on Kirchner and Nolde marking the beginning and the end. Titles are not imposed on the viewer and function more as informative wall text. Additionally, there is a banner with digitally printed questions or quotes in each room, articulating certain critical positions. The question “Were they [the children] simply playing, or was this child labour?” caught my attention as it contradicts the honourable depiction of Wissa Wassef’s and his idea of the creative art space. Besides fabric-based art, there are also paintings, sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Johan van Loon and archival records, like the invitation to Seth Siegelaub’s exhibition at the Oriental Rugs Gallery (from ca. 1965). The paper documents are locked in a glass vitrine, slightly limiting the up-close experience of the objects. Books are open in specific moments in time – a page on Cecilia Vicuña’s involvement in the Instinctive Painting movement, or a fragment about Etel Adnan’s Marée Basse painting (1973). Other archival documents include an exhibition catalogue from Willem Sandberg’s exhibition 19 schilders uit Haiti (1950). The displayed archival material comes from Stedelijk’s own collection casting light on the nature of past acquisition criteria. Pablo Picasso and Johan van Loon share with Wissa Wassef the belief that one does not need formal art school training to be an artist. Picasso’s sculpture Large Bird, Black Face (1951) is said to draw inspiration from innate childish creativity. Whereas Van Loon found freedom in folk tales. In his sculpture Volkskunst als onderwerp (1962) his creativity is materialized as a dark glazed form with embedded carvings.

The textiles shown in the exhibition offer a broad vocabulary of aesthetics and depicted stories. A work by Ria van Oerle-van Gorp is characterized by paired up figurative elements set against a vibrant background. Moving beyond Oerle-van Gorp’s metaphorical understanding of rectangular forms, Sheila Hicks,  a pioneer in fiber art, opted for abandoning the physical boundaries imposed by the medium. Her three-dimensional textiles make use of mixed knitting techniques combining natural and synthetic materials. Her works seem heavy, almost imposing on the viewer. The scale contrasts with the small-size work Shield (1967-1991) by Lenore Tawney. It is woven in linen, paint, and brass rod result in a dense sculptural assemblage. The work by the Ghanaian artist Dorothy Akpene Amenuke How Far How Near (2012) experiments not only with texture combinations, but simultaneously confronts the exploitation of her native Ghana by the processes of colonization and intercontinental trade. The textiles created by the young students of the Art Center are exhibited on a table-like podium. Presenting the works in this way makes it even harder to resist the impulse of touching the material. The tapestries depict surrounding rural environments or focus on more personal narratives, such as the one by Garya Mahmoud narrating a story of a young bride.

The growing popularity of the Art Center in Harrania caught the attention of political, cultural, and royal circles in Egypt. Etel Adnan and Jean Lurçat also paid visits to Wissa Wassef and his students. According to the exhibition website, the Art Center was founded as a community space in reaction to “the 20th century urban culture’s monotonous mass production and lack of creativity.” Its approach to teaching was distinct from traditional art history education. Weaving was taught through collective practices to foster the students’ creative spirits. There were only three rules students had to follow: no sketches, no external aesthetic influences, and no critical interference from adults.

Textile by Tahia Aly provides an interesting ending to the exhibition. Instead of merely observing the work, the viewer is invited to touch it and even smell it. This is a twist that activated my thinking about the purpose of the exhibition and viewer’s engagement with the art works. Textiles are not mere physical objects but their material acts as a living being whose existence has been closely intertwined with human history. Textiles in the exhibition capture a certain moment or an idea in time, carry on its meaning, requiring nonetheless imagination in the exercise. Personally, I would be curious to learn more about the stories of children who participated in the project. Did they find weaving as a valid form of expression? Additionally, what is the difference between a tapestry and a textile? What are the artistic and cultural implications behind the differences? Let Textiles Talk. Six Textiles Unravelled is partially a critical self-examination of museum’s past and partially an impact of globalization on socio- cultural spheres of production, circulation and consumption within the art scene. It is not overwhelming but provides a helpful reminder of the role non-European cultures (and their exploitation) played in transforming the iconography of modern European and American art.

You can learn more about the creative process of Let Textiles Talk. Six Textiles Unravelled through the blog of Amanda Pinatih, who curated the show: www.stedelijkstudies.com/meeting-the-colletion-research-logs/