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12.29.2010

Fair Enough: High Fiber, Part 1

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off
Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?
Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting
Fair Enough: Art or Trash?
Fair Enough: Prologue to the Report
Fair Enough: ABMB, Part 1
Fair Enough: ABMB, Part 2
Fair Enough: Aqua Art
Fair Enough: Pulse
Fair Enough: Seven
Fair Enough: Scope
Fair Enough: NADA
Fair Enough: Ink
Fair Enough: A Peek at Art Miami
Fair Enough: Doubletake at Art Miami
Fair Enough: Art Miami
Fair Enough: My Just Right Breakfast 

Fair Enough: Speaking Volumes 

Fair Enough: Really Reductive

Louise Bourgeois at Kukje Gallery, Seoul; ABMB
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There has always been a strong textile sensibility at the fairs (see here, here, here and here for instance), but I have to say that Miami this year felt like a regular mill town. Thread and fabric, as well as weaving, quilting, beading, knotting, knitting and crochet were much in evidence.  Obviously textile materials and techniques, often used in conjunction with paint and other conventional artmaking stuff, are simply a means for painters and sculptors to spin a tangible vision of their firing neurons. I saw much more than I can show you here--even in two posts (click onto Part 2 when you get to the end of this one)--but I hope you will find interesting the selection of images I have stitched together here.

Shezad Dawood painted found quilt at Chemould Contemporary, Mumbai; ABMB
Detail below



Cosima Von Bonin pieced quilt at Capital/Petzel, Cologne/New York; ABMB

Geraldine Javier diptych with photography and quilting at Silverlens Gallery, Seoul; Pulse
Detail below




Alighiero e Boetti enbroidered map, 1989, at Sperone Westwater, New York; ABMB
Detail below




Rosemarie Trockel knitted painting at Spruth Magers, Berlin and London; ABMB
Detail of the purl face below



Regine Schumann crochet hanging, shown in a black-lit booth, at Galerie Renate Bender, Berlin
Detail above
Full view below



Blake Rayne silkscreened paintings with polyester ribbon (with Liz Deschanes photogram between them) at Sutton Lane Gallery, London; ABMB


Isa Genzken at Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin; ABMB
Who would have thought that satin-patterned sheer fabric, the stuff of evening gowns, would find a partner with graffiti on plastic panels?


Another odd pairing: neatly folded graffiti (or are those lines what's left after spray painting?); installation at Taka Ishii, Tokyo; ABMB
Detail below



Ricardo Rendon perforated felt at Mitterrand+Sanz, Geneva; NADA


Jose Lerma construction with carpet pieces at Green Gallery, Milwaukee; NADA
You can't tell by this picture, but the booth is just a smidge wider than this work, which is about five feet, possibly the tiniest booth in any of the fairs


Marcelo Cidade painted felt at Vermelho, Sao Paolo; ABMB
Detail below




Louise Bourgeois, daughter of tapestry restorers, drew heavily from that childhood at the end of a long career

Above: The great arc of Fuseau (Needle) with a coil of flax fiber, at Galerie St. Moritz, St. Moritz; ABMB


Moving counterclockwise around the Karsten Greve booth: When I Was Young, center. (I showed the totem, with detail, in ABMB, Part 1)
Detail of center work below



More LB, here at Hauser & Wirth, London
Above: vitrine with tulle-swathed cloth figure and fabric collage on back wall
The collage, below



Ghada Amer acrylic-and-thread paintings at Goodman Gallery, Capetown; ABMB
Detail below



Diem Chau's embroidered vignettes--stitching on sheer fabric stretched over saucers--at G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle; Aqua Art
Closeup of Cheongsam, below



Elena del Rivero paper "dishcloth" at Galerie Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid; ABMB
Stitching detail below



Angelo Filomeno embroidery on burlap olive bags at Galerie Lelong, New York; ABMB
Detail below



Nick Cave button-covered "soundsuit" at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; ABMB
Detail below



Installation view of Cave's work. A former Alvin Ailey dancer, Cave now creates these suits, which make sounds when the wearer moves. This group, completely covered in buttons, recalls the 19th-century Cockney button suit worn for parades and carnivals 


Installation view at Victoria Miro Gallery, London, at ABMB, where all the work was connected by a textile thread. Foreground,  Maria Nepomuceno basket-coiled sculpture; rear, Conrad Shawcross rope-twisting maching; right, Yayoi Kusama soft wall

Specific views below

Maria Nepomuceno

Conrad Shawcross

Yayoi Kusama


Michael Sailstorfer knots in cast aluminum at (I think) Johan Koenig, Berlin; ABMB

 

Jim Lambie Psychedelic Soul Stick, thread-wrapped bamboo at The Modern Institute/Toby Webster, London; ABMB
Detail below



Mindblowing threads: Emil Lukas at Sperone Westwater, New York; ABMB
Above: Detail (scale is a few inches across) 

Below: the large painting whose surface is articulated solely by the crisscrossing passage of colored threads over a peach-colored ground

 


Wrapping threads: William J. O'Brien relief painting at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; ABMB
Detail below



You Know Who from 1963, before Jeanne-Claude, at Annely Juda, London. The untitled work consistes of gym shoes, wrapped and tied

 

Siobhan Liddell at CRG Gallery, New York; ABMB
Detail below, with a double-string circle defining the articulated surface


Part 2 continues here (there were too many images for one post)

2 comments:

Yasmin Sabur said...

I've been breathlessly awaiting these posts on fiber. You have both made my day and deprived me of a guilty pleasure. Reading the whinings of the quilty girls, who win top prizes at international quilt competitions, yet feel that they are left out of the "art" world, for some reason delights me. Now you need to make sure that none of the qgs are on your list of followers, or every gallery showing at Art Basel will be inundated with submissions from quilters who have taken five classes from a "master" and want a show. You for having exposed the girls to the world of high fiber will forever be denied entry into future Art Basels, and snubbed by curators, gallery owners and much of the western world.

Anonymous said...

Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!