SAVE THE DATE / THE EVENT OF A THREAD: GLOBAL NARRATIVES IN TEXTILES, 22 FEBRUARY - 7 JULY 2019
“The Event of a Thread” brings together 25 international contemporary artists, who use textile to create aesthetic and cultural narratives through objects, installations and video works. The title of the exhibition is a quotation from On Weaving (1965), the reference book by Anni Albers, one of the most important artists from the Bauhaus textile workshops. Albers believed that socio-cultural and economic activities impacted textiles, and stated that “Just as it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of ever-extending relationships. Thus tangential subjects come into view. ” According to Albers, one could discover “the event of a thread” at the root of each development. In the exhibition, weaving threads are utilized as a metaphor, which facilitate the interaction of weaving styles, stories and production techniques from different cultures, and mediate the development of new connections between them.
Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), one of the oldest art institutions in Germany, the exhibition is curated by Susanne Weiss and Inka Gressel on the invitation of ifa and aims to build on the original selection by creating new connections in each institution the exhibition travels to, with the assistance of curators at each institution and the addition of new works from local artists. “The Event of a Thread” features a variety of stories ranging from the tradition of quipu used by ancient Andean cultures in South America to the textile techniques from the indigenous people of Wichí in Argentine and from Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu’s revival and adoption of the long-forgotten tradition of yazma (originally used for hand-painted kerchief) to Burhan Dogançay’s tapestries created at the Aubusson workshops. The exhibition focuses on the historical, social and cultural meanings of fabrics, investigates the various uses of textile as a tool of expression and presents different artistic positions that interact with one another within the exhibition space.
One of the two special areas in the exhibition has been dedicated to Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu (1911-1975), the first artist to develop a synthesis between painting and embroidery, textiles and yazma traditions in Turkey. A selection of Eyüboglu’s yazma in addition to a selection of his never-before-seen fabric-printing block plates are presented in the “The Event of a Thread” exhibition. The other special area in the exhibition has been dedicated to Bauhaus. In this special area, there is a large installation dedicated to Bauhaus, the art school that influenced art and design education around the world upon its establishment by Walter Gropius in Germany, in 1919.
Starting in Dresden, “The Event of a Thread” exhibition travelled to Kuwait before making its way to Istanbul. The touring exhibition demonstrates the variety of opportunities provided by textiles as a multifaceted tool of expression in addition to its purpose as a surface produced via the systematic integration of yarn layers, warps and wefts. Social, cultural and historical narratives are untied from threads of fabric and rearranged for us to create new connections between them.
Artists: Belkis Balpinar, Ulla von Brandenburg, Hussein Chalayan, Burhan Dogançay, Noa Eshkol, Andreas Exner, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu, Uli Fischer, Sakir Gökçebag, Zille Homma Hamid, Heide Hinrichs, Olaf Holzapfel, Gözde Ilkin, Christa Jeitner, Elisa van Joolen & Vincent Vulsma, Gülsün Karamustafa, Servet Koçyigit, Eva Meyer & Eran Schaerf, Karen Michelsen Castañón, Irfan Önürmen, Judith Raum, Sabire Susuz, Franz Erhard Walther
and
Bauhaus Space
Harald Schmidt Archive
Ziya Tacir
Curators: Susanne Weiß, Inka Gressel (ifa, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen); Öykü Özsoy (Istanbul Modern)
Curatorial Team
Ümit Mesci, Deniz Pehlivaner