The Event of a Thread

Textiles are at the heart of the new ifa touring exhibition, which focuses on questions including: what inherent meanings and messages can be found in fabrics? What is the cultural significance of material? How can they be “read”? Textiles are a site where art encounters handicraft, where traditions meet the present day, where local knowledge intersects with global relationships. Almost every part of the world has witnessed the complex inscription of textiles into cultural and industrial history. A fabric can tell us a lot about when and where particular materials became important, the migration of technologies and the development of techniques. The artists link personal and aesthetic narratives with the social and economic circumstances of a globalized world.

The exhibition highlights the many and complex ways in which the participating artists have worked with textiles. The selection emphasizes both the transcultural dimensions of fabric and its entanglement in contemporary issues, examining how textile patterns and forms have developed under particular economic conditions and social structures.

In 1965, the Bauhaus artist Anni Albers described “the event of a thread” as something multilinear, without beginning or end: more broadly, it meant the constant possibility of reassessing relations and restructuring connections. This reconfigurative vision is illustrated by the objects, installations and video essays assembled in the exhibition, which disclose the specific qualities of textiles, their contexts and their histories. In this way, the works highlight the complex ways in which “textility” is interwoven in our lives.

Curator: Susanne Weiß, in collaboration with Inka Gressel, ifa
 

The Bauhaus Space
The exhibition’s Bauhaus Space highlights the role of weaving at the Bauhaus, a rich case study which allows us to investigate the relation between craft and artistic medium. The space is dedicated to the Bauhaus weaving workshop, tracing its extraordinary success story in six chapters. We encounter the stories of the people who made it what it was, the materials and fabrics produced there, and the traces still to be found in archives and museums. In a specially-designed display, newly-woven textiles inspired by Bauhaus fabrics can be examined and touched.

Concept and artistic research: Judith Raum, in collaboration with Jakob Kirch, Pascal Storz and the architects s.t.i.f.f.

Local Forms of Knowledge
The ifa touring exhibition will be shown in international museums. In each location, it will make practical and theoretical connections to specific local questions. Together with local artists and curators, the main body of the exhibition will be expanded with material relevant to location’s own textile history, connecting the exhibition with the work of artists associated with that city. This raises a new set of questions: how does the significance of the “thread” change as it moves through different locations? How can the exhibition connect with each new context, with the textures of its everyday life, and with its history, which is partly shared and partly unique?

Local Interweavings: exhibitions, performances, actions, workshops

Artists: Christa Jeitner, Constanze Nowak, Anette Rose, Anna Schapiro, Lara Schnitger, Raul Walch

For its premiere in Dresden, the exhibition will be “woven” into the structure of the city through collaborations with local artists and events—exhibitions, workshops and performances—highlighting the continuities between local and global traditions.

Curator, Kunsthaus Dresden: Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, in collaboration with Daniela Hoferer

Related events

Colloquium
September 2, 10am–6pm
The artists speak on the thematic contexts within the exhibition. Upon registration only. 
Aktsaal, HfBK Dresden, Brühlsche Terrasse 1, 01067 Dresden 

Performance: Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Company
September 2, 7pm 
Labortheater, HfBK Dresden, Güntzstraße 34, 01307 Dresden 

For further information about the extensive programme in Dresden click here.
For further information about ifa touring exhibitions visit www.ifa.de.

*Technik, 2012–2013, Navajo Indian weaving, transitional period, ca. 1890’s, hand woven, natural wool; Pendleton Indian Trade Blanket, J. Capps & Sons Tribute #2, based on an original design c. 1910, felt binding, pure virgin wool and cotton, made in the USA; Ikea, Lappljung Ruta, design by Anna Evferlund, machine woven, polypropylene, made in Egypt; Bernhard Willhelm, Chevron Print Sweater, AW 2012/2013, knitted, cotton and mohair, made in Belgium; metal clothing racks, dimensions variable. Photo: Uwe Walther. © Elisa van Joolen & Vincent Vulsma.