Visiting "Textility" (Part One)

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Essay: Diverse Practices, Common Threads

Visiting Textility (Part Two).



Panoramic view from the entrance

Several hundred people turned out for the opening of Textility at the Visual Art Center of New Jersey in Summit last Friday night. This is the exhibition I co-curated with Mary Birmingham, who is the curator at the institution. Sharing an interest in the ways contemporary artists are referencing textiles, we put together a survey that approaches the topic from two directions: artists who use conventional artmaking materials to create the image or suggestion of textiles, and those who use thread and cloth to create painting, sculpture and work on paper. We installed 40 works by 28 artists in three galleries and various other spaces throughout the institution.

You can read the particulars about the work in my catalog essay, posted last week on this blog: Diverse Practices, Common Threads. (And you can see some behind-the-scenes views here.) In this post I simply want to show you what the exhibition looks like. There's so much to show you, in fact, that I'm splitting the installation into two posts. In this post you see work in the large ground-floor gallery and the smaller Eisenberg Gallery next to it. Next Wednesday we'll go upstairs to Studio X, and travel elsewhere in the building.

We're going to work our way clockwise around the gallery:
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From foreground: Lael Marshall, Elana Herzog, Susanna Starr, Leslie Wayne, Nava Lubelski, Mary Carlson, Peter Weber
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Elana Herzog, Untitled,  2011; wood, metal staples, textile, 33 x 34 x 3 inches
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Detail below

Susanna Starr, Dresser Doily, 2005, hand-cut mahogany wood veneer, 70 x 47 inches
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Leslie Wayne, One Big love #46, 2010, oil on wood, 14 x 11 inches

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Detail showing gathered layers of paint film

Nava Lubelski, Chance of Flurries, 2011, thread on stained canvas, 46 x 36 inches

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Mary Carlson, Ghost Flag, 2007, sewn sheer fabric, 123 x 70 inches
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Peter Weber, Arlene Shechet on plinth on floor

Barbara Ellmann, Wherewithall, 2011, encaustic on panel; 12 panels, each 24 x 24 inches, 102 x 76 inches overall
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Ellmann detail below

Continuing around the gallery from left: Weber, Shechet, Ellmann, Sharon Butler; foreground: Susan Still Scott

(When we move to the Eisenberg Gallery it will be through the door you see here)

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Peter Weber, Vernetzung BL6 (9), 2009, folded felt, 20.5 x 20.5 inches

Arlene Shechet, Coil, 2004-07, cast and pigmented crystal, 25 x 8.5 x 7 inches

Sharon Butler, UniQlo, 2011; spray paint, urethane, pencil and sewing on unstretched gessoed canvas and unprimed linen, 65 x 50 inches
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Butler; detail of Derick Melander sculpture, The Painful Spectacle of Finding Oneself, 2010; second-hand clothing, wood, steel, 12 x 12 x 72 inches

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Butler; full view of Melander sculpture; foreground: Susan Still Scott, Slider, 2010; acrylic, flashe and enamel on canvas, cotton duck, wood with staples, wire, polyfill fiber, 57 x 16 x 31 inches
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Butler, Melander, Lalani Nan (in distance), Scott
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Lalani Nan, Gray, 2006, oil on linen, 52 x 46 inches
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Lalani Nan
(Wall text is just to the left of the entrance)
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View from the opposite end of the gallery: Melander, Jennifer Cecere, Marshall, Herzog, Starr, Scott
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Jennifer Cecere, Mother, 2011, ripstop nylon, 96 inches diameter

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Now we move to the Eisenberg Gallery next door. The room is not quite octagonal, but it has a number of walls that are not at 90-degree angles. The result is a space that extends a kind of embrace to the work. Here we showed work on paper, all achromatic except for one spot of red, which you'll see in the panorama below.

Peeking into the Eisenberg Gallery
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This panorama distorts the angles of the room, but you can see that it's not a white cube. Many who viewed the work in this room described the space as "meditative", which is appropriate give the low-key presence of the work. Artists are identified in the subsequent photos
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Carly Glovinski, Sam Moyer, Caroline Burton, Aric Obrosey, Gelah Penn
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Moyer, Burton, Obrosey, Penn, Marietta Hoferer
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Sam Messenger

 

Carly Glovinski, Untitled (dishrag), ink and correction fluid on paper, 16 x 9 x 6.5 inches

Sam Moyer, Close Screen, 2011, india ink on paper, 22 x 30 inches

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Caroline Burton, Untitled (tape 1), 2006; tape, thread, wire, metal, 12.5 x 10 x 2.5 inches
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 Aric Obrosey, almost full view of Untitled, 2006, charcoal on paper, 30 x 22.5 inches

Gelah Penn, detail of Big Blackfil #1, 2010; monofilament, mosquito netting, plastic mesh, acrylic and graphite on Yupo, 60 x 38 x 6 inches
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Marietta Hoferer, B, 2011, pencil and black-lined transparent tape on paper, 21 x 21 inches
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Sam Messenger, Veil from Alpheus, 2011; pen and ink, ink wash, starch past and river water on paper, 64 x 59 inches

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To be continued  . . .

In the meantime, the Textility blog of the Visual Art Center of New Jersey has posted installation images as well as pics from the reception.