TEXTILE Cloth and Culture

ISSN: 1475-9756 (Print) 1751-8350 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rftx20

Thread Lines

Susan Snodgrass

To cite this article: Susan Snodgrass (2016) Thread Lines, TEXTILE, 14:3, 394-403, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2016.1166761 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2016.1166761

Published online: 20 May 2016.

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rftx20 Exhibition Review Thread Lines Exhibition Review Thread Lines

The Drawing Center, New York, September 19 to December 14, 2014

Fiber art is undeniably a social as an open-ended act in which practice, intimately tied to histo- lines can be woven, stitched, even ries of labor, textiles, handcraft, embodied.” community, and gendered ritual. Yet despite the exhibition’s As a material and aesthetic prac- premise, Thread Lines, relatively tice, it has endured a somewhat modest in both scale and ambition, complicated relationship to other offered a somewhat conventional, artistic media; however, several if not formalistic definition of concurrent exhibitions have sought drawing as a visual medium solely to redefine the boundaries and based on line. Many works were intersections between small and retained a two-dimen- and more hierarchical disciplines, sional format that substituted among them the touring Fiber: sewn or stitched thread for various Sculpture 1960‒present, organized forms of mark making, such as by the Institute of Contemporary less-brazen examples of Shields’ Art, Boston, and Thread Lines, unique handmade assemblages, recently on view at The Drawing the influence of which is seen Center. in Drew Shiflett’s untitled “con- An intergenerational sampling structed drawing” that similarly of 16 artists, including Shelia combines watercolor, fabric, Hicks, Kimsooja, Alan Shields, and paper. For others, line is an Lenore Tawney, and Anne Wil- expressive, symbolic gesture, as son, Thread Lines highlights the evinced in Maria Lai’s handmade affinities between textile art and books whose embroidered narra- drawing. According to the Drawing tives shun any linguistic meaning, Center’s press materials: “[This] and in the celestial orb evoked exhibition … disabuses the tradi- in Jessica Rankin’s stitched field tion of drawing as simply putting of blue-black organdy. Likewise, pen to paper, framing it instead William J. O’Brien’s eye-popping REVIEWED BY SUSAN SNODGRASS Susan Snodgrass is a Chicago-based critic, editor, and educator. Much of her writing is devoted to alternative models of critical practice and art making, whether exploring new genres Textile, Volume 14, Issue 3, pp. 394–403 of public art or contemporary Central and East DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2016.1166761 European art. She is co-editor of ARTMargins Reprints available directly from the Publishers. Online (www.artmargins.com), and a Senior Photocopying permitted by licence only. Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Chicago. Taylor & Francis Group [email protected] Printed in the United Kingdom 396 Exhibition Review

Figure 1 Beryl Korot; Weaver’s Notation-Variation 1, 2012; Digital embroidery and inkjet on photo rag; 21 1/4 x 21 1/4 inches; Edition of 6; Courtesy Bitforms Gallery New York and Solo Impression, Inc.

untitled series of violet felt cutouts, works, including those by Beryl by Korot, however, his black-and- while impressive for its visual Korot, whose groundbreaking white drawings offer an “analog” aura, is mainly a study in color and installation Text and Commentary take on the processes of textile geometric form. (1976‒1977), was one of the first construction and data visualiza- A more expansive view of the to explore this shared territory. tion. In Sleeveless Cardigan and relationship between drawing and Korot’s original project combined Classic Cardigan (both 2014) (Fig- fiber art is found in those works video, textiles, and drawings that ure 2), the artist recasts sweater that draw parallels between mech- together revealed how informa- patterns into a matrix of flattened anisms of textile manufacturing tion is encoded into patterns and cells rendered in graphite on graph and various information technol- lines. The two works on view here, paper. Here, he connects the activ- ogies, namely the importance of Weaver’s Notation-Variation 1 and ities of knitting and drawing, as the loom to the development of the Weaver’s Notation-Variation 2 work made by hand, while creating modern computer. Thus the grid, (both 2012) (Figure 1), are based graphic, totemic designs that also as both a visual form constructed on Korot’s earlier drawings, but read as architectural renderings. from nodes of intersecting lines employ digital methods of embroi- Ellen Lesperance’s drawings and as an information network, dery to produce dense, dizzying (gouache and graphite on tea- becomes the physical and con- patterns in black and white. stained paper) are also based on ceptual infrastructure for some of Works by Robert Otto Epstein sweater patterns, those worn by the exhibition’s most rewarding share a visual connection to those female activists. The two works Susan Snodgrass 397

Figure 2 Robert Otto Epstein; Classic Cardigan, 2014; Graphite on paper; 23 1/4 x 17 7/8 inches; Courtesy of the artist.

included here commemorate peace those artists who employ textiles three-dimensional, free-hanging advocate Rachel Corrie, who was as a tensile, subversive medium abstractions, an example of which, killed in 2003 during a protest in open to a broader range of artistic similarly titled from 1974 (Figure the Gaza strip, by deconstructing and human values. Works by 3), was also on view. Sam Moyer’s the patterns of actual sweaters Lenore Tawney, whose pioneering IKEA rugs (Figure 4), unraveled worn by Corrie into colorful grids of contributions to both fiber art and then painted in thick black encaus- mauve and lavender, respectively. drawing, are emblematic in this tic, serve as a contemporary coun- However, to this viewer, the polit- regard. Included here was the terpart to Shelia Hicks’ well-known ical, memorial function of these drawing Union of Water and Fire “minims,” (Figure 5) both of which works is muted by their overly II, part of a series of ink drawings destabilize the grid through their stylized images. on graph paper she began in 1964. juxtapositions of materials hard/ The grid as an iconic structure The artist later reinterpreted these soft and high/low. of modernism is challenged by two-dimensional drawings into 398 Exhibition Review

Figure 3 Lenore Tawney; Union of Water and Fire, 1974; Linen; 38 x 36 inches; Collection of the Lenore G. Tawney Foundation.

Like Tawney, Louise Bourgeois Textiles have also been a tle’s “kinesthetic drawing practice” stands as a central figure whose mainstay of Bourgeois’ sculptural within the framework of dance and work spans and expands several practice, as they have been for performance, noting the “expres- media, while imparting a unique several other artists, and Thread sive physicality of his creative pro- vision based on personal biogra- Lines might have benefited from cess,” particularly in terms of his phy and symbolism. Concentric the inclusion of more artists whose Wire Pieces (Butler 2005, 171). As bands of colorful fabric cut from work similarly moves across a Sandback once stated: “A line of personal artifacts, such as clothing broader spectrum of media and cul- string isn’t a line, it’s a thing, and and linens, radiate from a cen- tural contexts (among them, Claire as a thing it doesn’t define a plane tral vantage point in a series of Zeisler, Eva Hesse, Fred Sandback, but everything else outside its own stitched-fabric drawings that evoke Richard Tuttle, Cecilia Vicuna). For boundaries. It’s an ‘aggregate of the artist’s well-known spider webs example, curator Cornelia H. Butler experiences …’” (see Statements (Figure 6). has discussed what she terms Tut- from the Fred Sandback Archive Susan Snodgrass 399

Figure 4 Sam Moyer; Worry Rug 1, 2009; Ikea rug, encaustic; 47 x 28 inches; Courtesy of the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery.

http://fredsandbackarchive.org/ ing and textile with deep history. (Walking New York) (Figures 7a and atxt_1975stat.html) Upon discovering that the Drawing 7b), the highlight of the show. At Works by Anne Wilson and Center was once the site of the Pos- select dates throughout the exhibi- Kimsooja were the few that directly itive Motion Loom Company, Wilson tion’s run, performers wrapped the engaged with ideas of community transformed the interior spaces of museum’s four central columns with and enactment, connecting a more the museum into a living loom in her fluorescent green thread to form a political, experiential view of draw- site-specific performance To Cross standard cross or warp, 400 Exhibition Review

Figure 5 ; Transpercer 3 Fois, 2009; Wool, silk, metallic thread; 9.25 x 8.125 inches; Courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

using slow, repetitive movements her film series Thread Routes, the sense of place as richly textured as that echo the methodical process of first chapter of which, presented the threads being spun. preparing a loom for weaving. Here, here although in a separate space Thread Lines, with its impres- Wilson continues her well-known from the main exhibition, explores sive roster of artists, offered a first investigations with issues of labor a traditional weaving community take on the relationship between and communal activity, at the same in Peru (Figure 8). Close-up images fiber art and drawing. One looks time creating a luminous sculptural of women’s hands, both wrinkled forward to further explorations form that thoughtfully activated the and smooth, capture the repeated that expand the parameters of physical and conceptual spaces of movements of winding fibers drawing, again presented here in the gallery. around wooden sticks and spools, terms of line, into other spatial Kimsooja also looks at textile while long, silent views of the arenas—artistic, social, and oth- traditions and indigenous craft in highlands of Machu Picchu offer a erwise. Susan Snodgrass 401

Figure 6 Louise Bourgeois; Untitled, 2006; Fabric; 15 x 22 1/4 inches; Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York. 402 Exhibition Review

Figures 7a and b Anne Wilson; To Cross (Walking New York), 2014; Site specific performance and sculpture; Dimensions variable; Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Susan Snodgrass 403

Figure 8 Kimsooja; Thread Routes-Chapter 1, 2010; 16-mm film transferred to HD format; 29:31 min, 5.1 surround sound; Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio.

Reference Butler, Cornelia H. 2005. “Kinesthetic Drawing”. In The Art of Richard Tuttle, edited by Madeleine Grynsztejn, 171. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.