Mark Barrow & Sarah Parke, 4.24 – 6.30, 2017. Photograph courtesy of Josée Bienvenu Gallery
Mark Barrow & Sarah Parke, Reweave, 2015. Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Dee Gallery
The Surface of the East Coast: Supports/Surfaces from Nice to New York
June 21 to August 24, 2018
Josée Bienvenu Gallery presents The Surface of the East Coast: “a dialogue between two generations of artists”: Mark Barrow & Sarah Parke, Adam Henry and Lucas Knipscher with the original Supports/Surfaces artists Marc Devade, Noël Dolla and Claude Viallat. The Supports/Surfaces movement began in the south of France in the late 1960s by a group of artists who explored the materiality and process of painting, pushing the boundaries of abstract, formalist conventions. As Josée Bienvenu Gallery explains, the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction, craftsmanship, and the transformation of ordinary or recycled materials are similarly present in the work of young New York artists on exhibition.
The duo Mark Barrow & Sarah Parke, for example, paint dots on hand-woven fabric using CYMK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) and RBG (red-green-blue) color printing models to create “textile-painting hybrid pieces.” Their intricate mixed media assemblages combine handicraft, digital media, and computer coding.
Photograph courtesy of AFA Gallery
June 7th to September 2nd, 2018
AFA Gallery introduces Wonderlust, a group exhibition that highlights eight contemporary artists “working with nontraditional materials or traditional materials in an unconventional way.” In her soft, hand-woven sculptural work, Toni Brogan channels fiber artists of the early twentieth century with a twist, “developing [her] own language and techniques” by incorporating unusual materials like computer parts, wires, and electrical cords into her unique creations. Other exhibiting artists include Alexander Kellum, Thom Lussier, Pierre Matter, Taezoo Park, Michael Sanzone, Stickymonger, and Crystal Wagner.
Photo courtesy of The Museum at FIT
Fashion Unraveled: Memory, Wear, and Imperfection in Dress
Fashion and Textile History Gallery, The Museum at FIT
May 25 to November 17, 2018
Curated by Colleen Hill
MIT’s Fashion and Textile History Gallery presents Fashion Unraveled, a unique exhibition that explores “the roles of memory and imperfection in fashion” as well as “the aberrant beauty in flawed objects.” Curated by Colleen Hill, the installation primarily features altered, unfinished, and repurposed garments that tell intriguing histories about the wearers and/or makers, give insight into the process of fashion making, and shed light on the personal and physical relationships we have with our clothes.
Photo courtesy of Victoria Manganiello
Currently on view until July 25th, 2018
Victoria Manganiello and Julian Goldman
Former TAC Artist in Residence, Victoria Manganiello, and designer, Julian Goldman, will be displaying their most recent collaborative project at Sara Kay Gallery: a mixed media, hand-woven cloth “with a programmed kinetic surface that brings to mind data, code, and communication infrastructure.” Together, Manganiello and Goldman seek to create a “historical lens” that retraces the lineage of modern computers back to its often forgotten ancestor: the mechanical loom developed by silk weaver, Joseph Marie Jacquard, in 1801. As Manganiello and Goldman describe, their installation explores the historical continuities between textiles and programming and raises important, pressing questions about the uncertain potential of technology.
Watch this video to hear more about Computer 1.0:
Photo courtesy of Culturunners and Open Projects
Ojalá: A Cultural Exchange from Latin American & Middle Eastern Diasporas
Culturunners project space – 144 Duane St, NYC, NY
June 21st, 7-9pm – July 20th
Curated by Danielo Garcia
This month Culturunners and Open Projects present Ojalé, a group show curated by Danielo Garcia that highlights works by artists from Latin America and the Middle East (including the diaspora). As stated in the show’s press release, Ojalé “explore[s] similarities and challenges faced by these communities in pursuit of hope, which has been bundled as the fraught ‘American Dream.’” Touching on the exhibition’s themes of representation and identity, TAC Artist in Residence alum, Rhonda Khalifeh, will be exhibiting one-of-a-kind pieces from her ongoing series, Project Z. Other exhibiting artists include Florencia Escudero, Anima Correa, and Soraya Majd.
Photo courtesy of Museum of Arts and Design
Museum of Arts and Design
With Cynthia Alberto and Weaving Hand
July 14, 2018, 1-3pm
$25 general / $15 members and students
Join MAD’s current summer studio resident, Cynthia Alberto, and members of her Brooklyn-based healing arts studio, Weaving Hand, for a demonstration on zero-waste and sustainability concepts. As described on the MAD website, the workshop will focus on introductory weaving techniques on a peg loom and explore ways of incorporating sustainable practices and recycled materials into weaving projects! See MAD’s website for more details.
Fiber Book Picks
Artists and curators from this month’s exhibitions highlight the rich histories and stories to be found in textile and fiber pieces. Shows like Fashion Unraveled, Computer 1.0, and Ojalé seek to trace historical patterns and processes between craft, technology, as well as economic and political forces. Pushing the boundaries of conventional materials, events like MAD’s workshop, Zero-Waste Weaving Projects and The Surface of the East Coast, also address similar themes of craftsmanship, construction, and sustainability within the arts. In “Fiber Book Picks,” we contribute to the textile-craft discourse by suggesting five books which resonate with events and exhibitions in July’s textile and fiber art picks:
- Manus X Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology (2016) by Andrew Bolton, Nicholas Alan Cope, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Available at Blue: The Tatter Textile Library
- Textile Visionaries: Innovation and Sustainability in Textile Design (2013) by Bradley Quinn. Available at the Thomas J. Watson Library
- Fray: Art and Textile Politics (2017) by Julia Bryan-Wilson (2017). Available at the New York Public Library
- On Weaving (2017) by Anni Albers. Available at the New York Public Library and the Museum of Modern Art Library
- Techno Textiles 2: Revolutionary Fabrics for Fashion and Design (2007) by Sarah Braddock and Marie O’Mahony. Available at Blue: The Tatter Textile Library
