The exhibition ‘The Work That Textile Does’ opened on the 8th of July in the the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź. The three-storey exhibition space features textiles created by artists from Poland and abroad spanning across one hundred years. The exhibition is organised as part of the ‘Interweaving Structures: Fabric as Material, Method and Message,’ project run jointly by the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen and the Doctoral School of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
The curatorial team in charge of the exhibition – Jakub Gawkowski, Marta Kowalewska and Anne Szefer Karlsen – decided to take the museum’s own collection as a point of departure for building a narrative. At the core, there is a consideration of the manner in which the textile works in a very broad context. Marta Kowalewska states the following: ‘Textile operates like no other medium, it is a record of the movement of hands, the rhythm of machines and the passage of time.’
The first floor of the building introduces us to the rich history of Polish textile art. However, the pieces are not displayed chronologically – they are in fact grouped according to the subjects of tradition, language and design. A variety of works presented as part of the design section are meant to shed light on the very first stage in the creation of material objects, emphasise the complexity of this process and the labour of an artist.
From Project to Object
‘There are many different methods of creating textiles, many different techniques and approaches. Most often, the work begins with an artist’s concept which provides the foundation for a detailed project which in turn is implemented in a workshop, and not by the artist,’ Marta Kowalewska says. In one of the display cabinets, there is the design of kilim from the studio of Teodor and Wanda Grott, alongside a detailed, fine chequered pattern sketched on paper. The work involved in weaving this textile required the assistance of people other than the artist. Although those who perform the actual work are often anonymous to us, the textile itself is a record and witness of their manual labour. A different approach was demonstrated by Małgorzata Markiewicz, who designed a double-weave textile titled ‘For Eleonora.’ The piece was made by Bernarda Rość, a weaver from the Podlasie region, whose name is included on the label. The title refers to Eleonora Plutyńska, the creator of numerous double-weave textiles and kilims, some of which are displayed in this exhibition. Plutyńska was also a teacher of many artists who revolutionised textile art. She worked at the Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw for a number of years, taking a whole generation of artists under her wings, who eventually came to represent the so-called Polish School of Textile Art. This term was coined after the first Tapestry Biennale in Lausanne in 1962 featuring works by Polish artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Wojciech Sadley and Jolanta Owidzka, which stood out among the rest through the richness of textures, use of different materials and sublime quality at a time when textile art was dominated by French-style tapestry.
The shift which occurred in the 1960s is clearly evident from the aforementioned projects. The whole approach towards textile making changed, as did the conceptual work. The pieces by Magdalena Abakanowicz and Jolanta Owidzka are rather intuitive records of composition and colour highlights. At first glance, they call to mind abstract sketches for paintings. A change of concept often arises directly from the actual work on a textile with the use of various materials and their unique properties. What is more, the finished textile could undergo a transformation. A good example could be ‘The Three-Piece Abakan’ from the museum’s collection which in fact consists of two pieces because the artist joined two sections together while assembling it for one of the shows.
Language of Textiles
The works of Polish artists from the 1960s and 1970s represent a great diversity of artistic language. ‘Oświęcim’ by Wojciech Sadley is a tapestry using traditional techniques touching on an important and evocative subject captured in modern form. Abakanowicz experimented with various materials, such as sisal, cotton rope, wool and horsehair, as is evident from her piece ‘White.’ Whereas ‘Composition’ by Jolanta Owidzka is made from used transmission strips from production machines. Maria Teresa Chojnacka created monochromatic forms emphasising the structure of her unique style of weaving, as exemplified by ‘Diminuendo.’ An exceptional experiment with materials (silk and synthetic foil) is conducted by Antoni Starczewski in the piece ‘Parallel Suites’ l managing to preserve his trademark motif repetition and rhythm of seemingly identical elements.
Other floors of the exhibition space present works that were borrowed from the artists or from Polish and international institutions. As Marta Kowalewska points out, ‘When we as the curatorial team were preparing the exhibition, we visited a number of studios, institutions as well as the studios of artists in Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø. Selected pieces continue the narrative unfolding on the first floor: references to tradition, the search for a new language of artistic expression through the medium of textile and the subject of the design stage in every creative process.’
The drawings by Rosemary Meyer are the blueprints and documentation of the artist’s works. Initially starting from conceptual work, she later tackled sculpture, experimenting with textiles and the potential of its form. The artist paid attention to the gravity and other laws of physics that affected the textile. The illustrations of changing shapes of her textile compositions made in the two-diemntional medium show her precise and motionless forms. On the other hand, the ‘mobility’ of textile is conveyed by Kiyoshi Yamamoto though a large, curtain-like fabric moving due to the movement of museum visitors. Marta Kowalewska states the following: ‘Textiles with a baggage of historic references can also play the role of an internationally recognised symbol. This particular piece, created in Palestine, refers to the traditional keffiyeh headdress used as protection against the sun, wind and sand. In the 1930s, they became symbolic of the resistance of the Palestinian national movement and until this day they denote solidarity in the fight for freedom.’
Identities
Multiple works focus on the subject of identity presented from different perspectives. The piece ‘Synthetic Folklore’ by Janek Simon demonstrates AI-generated patterns combining the folklore motifs from various continents. The artist explores cultural influences and blurred boundaries between cultures in the face of a globalised society. At the same time, this piece might be interpreted as the vision of a brand-new international culture in the era of rifts, social divides and xenophobia.
Another view on tradition is proposed by the Norwegian artist Aslaug M. Juliussen in her pieces ‘Varddus – Vy – View III’ and ‘Varddus – Vy – View IV.’ These two series utilise elements from the culture and tradition of the Saams – brown needles used to bind fabrics and reindeer antlers together. An even stronger reference to the history of the Saam peoples is established by Britta Marakatt-Labba in her work ‘Events in Time’ made from flour sacks from the Second World War. Due to the material deficit, the sacks were used to insulate huts in Northern Scandinavia. Additionally, one of the sacks is embroidered with a motif referring to the attacks in Oslo and the Utoya Island, in which 77 people were killed – both events are etched in the collective memory of Norway and other nations.
Marta Kowalewska notes the following: ‘”Remembrance” by Marsil Andjelov Al-Mahamid is worth mentioning in this context since it is also associated with the events of the Second World War. Born in Serbia, the artist moved to Tromsø, Norway in 2009. In his practice, he examines his personal experience with temporary memory loss after a fall in the mountains, but also the issue of trying to keep silent about certain historic tragedies. The exhibition features the series honouring the memory of 4049 Yugoslavian prisoners of war brought to Norway during the Second World War. Half of them did not survive. A group of 44 men was deported from the artist’s hometown to the concentration camp in Beisfjord. The artist portrays the bloodbath in Beisfjord, where 700 Yugoslavian prisoners had died. Marsil Andjelov Al-Mahamid wishes to bring to the fore the current armed conflicts all over the world, highlighting the fact that these are first and foremost personal stories. Another artist dealing with their own family history is Oksana Briuchowiecka – her piece “Songs and Flowers for the Ukraine” focuses on past tragic events and the tragedy of the Ukrainian nation during the on-going war.’
The identity of a person is not just based on being part of the nation but also on their own beliefs or sexual orientation. The latter is tackled by Ahmed Umar in the piece ‘Hijab [Annual Protection].’ The artist, originating from Sudan, experienced religious and social oppression. According to Kowalewska, ‘This artist’s practice draws on his personal experience. He was born in Sudan, where he lived in a society governed by religion, and so, he felt the repercussions resulting from him being outside of social and cultural norms. When he was twenty, he came to Norway as a political refugee. Through his activism and art, he fights for freedom and acceptance of queer people in Sudan and all over the world. The piece “Hijab (Annual Protection)” consists of 365 objects alluding to the mystical practice and amulets worn around the waist and shoulders during the religious ceremonies in Sudan. These practices are banned in Saudi Arabia. Based on his life story, Umar makes art that incorporates the influences of Islam, Arab and Western cultures.’
The exhibition, which takes the history of Polish textile art as its point of departure, illustrates the evolution of this discipline in the 20th century. It proves that textiles can serve as the medium for creative and political expression, activating the body, questioning norms, standards and notions about work. As we move through the floors, we can observe how particular issues have been addressed both in the past and present, as well as how they are still addressed by the next generations of artists from all over the world.
