The revolution of weavers at MoMA

The looms cradled modern abstract art since its inception. Between fabrics, carpets, tapestries and baskets, with manual or computerized machines, during a century the desire to express the folding feeling of all figuration has been reflected in the plots as well as in painting, sculpture or music.

This is the thesis and the conclusion of the exhibition Woven histories: textiles and modern abstraction (Woven stories, textiles and modern abstraction), open at the MoMA in New York until September 13, a chronological tour that groups more than 150 pieces already about 60 creators. Especially creators, since in this art they have been a majority, since the pioneers such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, contemporary of Vasili Kandinski and Paul Klee and one of the most important Dadaists, despite which criticism forgot about it for decades for criticism.

The exhibition makes clear the commitment of this art both with the expression of feeling and with practical utility

The exhibition makes clear the commitment of this art both with the expression of feeling and with practical utility. Also its cyclical character, since the concerns and themes reappear throughout generations. And another aspect: the critical spirit, from the beginning of the movement and more accentuated now, at the time of denouncing the abuses of the global textile industry and fast fashion.

The exposure route begins with the Dadaism of Taeuber-ORP and Hannah Höch and the constructivism of Liubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova, which after the Soviet revolution converted their artistic work in utility designs, and continues with Sonia Delaunay, who returned to the balance between fashion and artistic production.

Delaunay edited in 1929 Carpet and fabricsa collection of engravings that included designs of carpets, tapestries and fabrics of about 50 artists and designers, among which were the Germans Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl. Albers, who enrolled in the Bauhaus in 1922, for his longevity (1899-1994), had the opportunity to exert an enormous influence.

In 1933, the closing of the Bauhaus for the Nazi regime ended an era of artistic innovation, but at the same time led the dispersion of its members, especially in the United States, where Albers settled with her husband, Josef, in the Black Mountain College, in North Carolina. Known as The American Bauhaus Due to its holistic approach, the center operated from 1933 to 1957 and the best talents of the moment passed through it: among others, Walter Gropius, Aldous Huxley, Robert Motherwell, Kooning Willem, Robert Rauschenberg, Ruth Asawa, Dorothea Rockburne or Cy Twombly. Albers opened a fabric workshop there. When he closed it, it was the first textile artist who had his own exhibition at the MoMA in New York, in 1949.

In the 21st century, a new generation of artists explores the abilities of clothing to break the dominant social orders

The Magisterium of the Albers opened its way to a generation of artists, including Eva Hesse and Sheila Hicks. They coincide in time with the Venezuelan Gertrud Goldschmidt, Gegoexposed these days at the Elvira González Gallery in Madrid (Line, shape and spaceuntil May 24).

As the twentieth century approached its end, abstraction was incorporating elements of the information era. Already long before the artists had used the Jacquard mechanical loom – inventred in 1801, the first models of this machine used perforated cards to weave pre -designed patterns without the need for knowledge of the operator – but in the last decade of the twentieth century Analia Saban, Marilou Schultz and La Paz girl worked with computerized looms. In contrast, as always in this art, other creators extract their inspiration from previous technologies to loom, such as the knotted network, exploited by Rossbach, the Italian Marisa Merz and the Brazilian Mira Schendel.

As of the 1960s and 1970s, coinciding with the explosion of the industrial point, the greatest attention to clothing as a symbol of personal identity and cultural, social and political identification and, later, the emergence of fast fashion, textile art recovers themes of Bauhaus to reflect on ways of living. The feminist artists of this second wave focused on clothing as a key significant identity and lifestyle. In this sense, MoMA’s exhibition focuses on four artists: Rosemarie Trockel, Andrea Zittel, Paulina Ołowska and Ellen Lesopence.

In the 21st century, a new generation of artists explores the abilities of clothing to break the dominant social orders and affirm community identities, based on a trend that is born in feminist theory and queer Of the 1960s, it is developed at an era marked by globalization, postcolonial studies and the so -called “identity policies” and seeks to evoke the communities and subcultures with which each one identifies and compromises. In this line, Jeffrey Gibson, Liz Collins, Ann Hamilton, Diedrick Brackens, Igshaan Adams or Teresa Lanceta move.

The exhibition closes with a section that reflects on the great textile production and denounces its inequalities: an industry that moves a billion dollars at the cost of low wages, labor exploitation and environmental degradation, although it moves timidly towards responsibility. At this point of historical inflection, Woven histories attests to the tension of the moment.

Singersonal Exhibition

Ruth Asawa, Costa Costa Costa

Simultaneously to Woven historiesMoMa de San Francisco offers Ruth Asawa: retrospectivean exhibition with more than 300 works that the Museum of the Golden City, where Asawa had its home and its school, presents in collaboration with its New York counterpart. In the exhibition, his well -known sculptures woven with a loop wire (in the upper photo), which still exert influence in artists such as Arik Levy, will share space with others that demonstrate their experimental spirit and with some of colleagues such as Josef Albers and Imogen Cunningham. Asawa also has a presence in Woven histories.