2023-05-19 11:30:17
TEXTILE GRAMMARS. THE CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY
Writing
When we talk about Fiber Art or Textile Art, we are referring to art that bases its language not only on textiles, but on many different materials based on fibers, both natural and synthetic. At this time, new contemporary techniques are incorporated into traditional techniques, and with this, new supports are created for the realization of the works. In this way, the textile tradition has been inserted into the research project of the contemporary artist and thus an encounter of the textile with other processes of expression typical of contemporary art is produced.
The exhibition “Textile Grammars” focuses exclusively on contemporary textile works created by 16 Spanish artists and one international artist, all of them of recognized prestige. It intends to recover the works of art made by women, not only with embroidery but also by introducing different techniques and textile materials that question the established stereotypes imposed on Art, valuing artistic procedures in Contemporary Textile Art and the pressures exerted by the feminist movement. since the end of the 20th century.
A visual tour is proposed through the works that give prominence to women’s traditional techniques, such as embroidery, crochet or weaving, with the use of materials as disparate as women’s hair, trousseau cloths, reused sheets, esparto grass, wicker and woven cables. The pieces are made in different formats such as sculptures, installations or embroidery, highlighting the different discourses of each artist linked to reflections on gender and her own identity.
Fiber Art is generally associated with tradition and crafts. It has renewed its proposals in the last decades, creating an immense generation of artists that alternate the different plastic grammars with the procedures of both traditional and contemporary artistic production, becoming today a means of contemporary conceptual expression that is becoming increasingly relevant in the cultural world. An artistic activity that has been linked almost exclusively to the feminine; that is to say, pigeonholed in a product of women without great artistic value. Currently there are more women who work in Textile Art because ancestrally they were closer to these materials and theirs was the task of transmitting this art from generation to generation.
In the 1960s and 1980s, feminist movements arose that used embroidery as a tool of resistance to vindicate the traditional work of women and express themselves against preconceived ideas about femininity. Women play a fundamental role in using crafts as a form of resistance to limitations and disenfranchisement. After these demonstrations, many creators used textiles to claim their rights as women, artists and activists, and to erase the hierarchical separation between Art and the applied arts, as Rozsika Parker explained together with Griselda Pollock in the key chapter of Old Mistresses. Women, Art and Ideology (1981).
“If the women’s embroideries have been rescued from the dungeons of the domestic art to enter the main rooms of our art museums, this has been due, in part, to the pressure exerted by the feminist movement, which finally prevailed over old gender discriminations that were in force in the fine arts system” ( Shiner, 2004: 26).
Organized by the Department of Culture of the Alicante City Council together with María Ortega, curator of the exhibition, and general director of the X Contemporary Textile Art Biennial 25 years WTA in Madrid (2022) and the VIII International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art WTA Sustainable City from Madrid (2019). This exhibition is the first to be held in
Alicante with these characteristics, betting on the gender vision of textile artists, disseminating traditional art combining it with the latest contemporary trends to open new creative horizons.
Textile grammars. The construction of femininity, Seneca Space, Alicante. From May 23 to July 2, 2023.
Curator: Maria Ortega.
Artists: Aurelia Masanet, Ana Musma, Carmen Castañeda, Concha Romeu, Elisa Ortega Montilla, Estefanía Martín Sáez, Lucía Loren, Natalia Auffray, María Muñoz, María Gimeno, María Ortega, Maribel Domènech, Maite Ortega, Sonia Navarro, Susana Guerrero, Sandra Paula Fernandez and Yosi Anaya.
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