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Bebi
The Management
Joined: 02 May 2006
Posts: 824
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
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 Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 3:05 pm Post subject: Lace and knits go subversive in New York exhibition |
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| Quote: | Wednesday February 7, 02:38 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) -
On the surface, it's an art exhibition that would make any grandmother proud, with a knitted christening blanket and miniature cardigans, but a closer look might make granny's hair curl.
"It Sucks" is knitted across the christening blanket, the tiny sweaters and mittens are crafted from medical wire used to insert intravenous needles, and condom amulets are on a list of items being knitted for U.S. troops overseas.
Crocheted skulls outline a white cotton cloth.
David McFadden, chief curator of New York's Museum of Arts and Design, said he saw the potential for an exhibit rattling conventional views of the needle arts after being part of a jury at a lace exhibit in Belgium several years ago.
Around the same time McFadden noticed an "upsurge of knitters, knitters all over the place, not just for clothing but as a vehicle for art."
"It occurred to me that the two should be done together," said McFadden, who created the museum's new exhibition, "Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting" from a range of pieces that use fibres like steel and other materials in unexpected ways, some with political statements woven in.
"These are not your grandmother's crocheted doilies and knitted legwarmers."
Take New York-based artist Cat Mazza's woollen, crocheted petition designed to give people an alternative way to express opposition to a shoe manufacturer's use of cheap labour.
Or Erna van Sambeek's "Body Warmers for a Poor Family", a series of clothing knitted from discarded pages of the Financial Times newspaper, interweaving the theme of poverty.
Or the "Money Dress" by artist Dave Coal, a woman's dress knitted out of dollar bills, designed as a statement on wealth.
"The fact that I can take a dollar, destroy its integrity as a piece of paper, destroy its value as a currency, inject a whole bunch of useless labour into it and still end up with something that's worth $20,000 (10,000 pounds) or more is amazing to me," wrote Coal in the exhibition notes.
McFadden said the exhibition has drawn a younger audience to the 50-year-old museum. They seemed attracted to needlework as a way of "restoring balance" in a high-tech age, with rising numbers taking up knitting as a creative activity.
"A lot of the energy in the whole knitting world is coming up in the under-30 group and it is interesting to see the demographics of our own museum change (during this exhibition). There are a lot of young people coming.
"A lot of the artists are attacking some really interesting issues," said McFadden, who sifted through over a hundred submissions to choose the final 40 pieces from 30 artists.
In a loose fashion, each piece in the exhibit is grounded in the basic technique of its respective tradition although the idea of acetylene torches and abandoned car parts -- as used in one piece -- is not usually associated with knitting circles or lace.
Artist Cal Lane's exhibit," Filigree Car Bombing", is made from a car shell, rather than yarn, pock-marked with lacy cut-outs that let light through.
The exhibition "does subvert our notion of what these two, old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy techniques are about, and many of the ideas that came up are very radical", said McFadden.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/07022007...bversive-new-york-exhibition.html |
Normally I'm not much of a fan of "modern art" but this exhibition sounds interesting.
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