Textiles become prints and impressions become textiles Line and threadA new exhibition at Building Stephen A. Schwarzman from the New York Public Library. Through the parallel walls and in the windows, a selection of historical pieces and works of art from modern and contemporary artists meet to reveal the cross pollination with free flow between the two forms.
The overlaps between these manufacturing methods have deep roots, both in the etymological and horticultural directions. Cotton, harvested and turned in wire to make fabric or beaten in pulp to make paper, has long been an important plant for printing and textile production. And, as a wall label explains, the words “text” and “textiles” both come from the Latin word weave Which means “weaving”.
It is a joy to discover the thematic threads interconnected among the works of art of the exhibition, which line the gallery of the corridor on the third floor of the wing of special Rayner collections. At one end of the room painted with perverse, a well -stored assortment of historical pieces in a largely sepia palette highlights the first examples of the mixture of printing and textile arts, such as embroidered books and engravings with applied silk.
Take a walk in the rest of the space, and you will see Hit After Hit in an eclectic selection of more recent works of art: an artist's book by Faith Ringgold (“Seven passages to a flight”, 1995); A designer Graham Baldwin dress printed with archive images from the nearby library Pforzheimer collection; Folios from a collection by Sonia Delaunay (c. 1925); Impressions of Kiki Smith, Sanford Biggers and Anni Albers, among others. The groups include art impressions that incorporate hand seams, impressions like textiles (and textiles like impressions), artist books and meditations on clothing and repair. Together, the works converse in texture and technique, thread and ink.
The visual languages of the collage and the courtyard appear in several works. In Gee's Bend Quilter Loretta Pettway, the engraving piece and the installation of the aquatut “Remember Me” (2006), produced in collaboration with Paulson Fontaine Press in San Francisco, magnificent jewelry tones saturate the paper. An abstract arrangement of the rectangles winds through the page – a short -made paper, a house textile has turned into an art object. In “Arrival” (2023), an assembly of lively patterns and fabric printed on Japanese paper with a risographer machine and sewn with zigzag seams and pendant threads, the artist Jacquelyn Strycker plays happily with perception. By playing the amorphous qualities of paper and fabric and to merge the outlets of a sewing machine and retro office equipment, his works of art could be considered as a shortpoint itself, an impression of a shortpoint or a collage – something that is not easily held in a single kingdom of manufacture.
A spirit that jostles on the limits bubbles in the heart of Chartron of the show. In the sacred rooms of this historic research library, renowned for the accommodation of large archives and books (and the two are examples par excellence of textiles and united prints, through printed pages and covers and collections), this show feels at home. Embracing tradition and losing its limits, Line and thread Invites imagination and experimentation, offering an overview of what is happening when ideas, materials and creative processes collide and recombine, when the lines meander and the wires get into unexpectedly.
Line & Thread: prints and textiles from the 1600s now Continue in the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library in the wing of special collections Rayner (Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, Manhattan) until January 12, 2025. Madeleine Viljoen organized the exhibition.
