NYAB Event - "Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers" Exhibition

"Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers" Exhibition

Japan Society Gallery

This event has ended.

The exhibition explores a new art that is emerging from a remarkable fusion of Japanese artisanal and industrial textile-making. Coaxed from materials as age-old as hemp and newly developed as microfilaments, a varied array of more than 35 large-scale works will be on view. While the spirit of a Japanese sensibility and a technical virtuosity hewn over centuries is everywhere evident, what best characterizes the work on view is a thirst for experimentation, whether it be in the search for the unconventional material or in the fusing of seemingly opposing extremes of old and new. One also sees the medium of fiber used to express ideas about nature and sustainability and personal and cultural identity.

“These works remind us that important art need not always be about rebellion or subversion,” notes Joe Earle, Director of Japan Society Gallery and curator of the exhibition. “For most of the 30 artists represented here, it is the material that tells them what to do next, in the spirit of tariki, originally a Buddhist term meaning the ‘power of another.’”

“The very qualities that are unique to fabric inspire me and my fellow artists to try to move beyond mere technical mastery to create daring and beautiful works of art,” says Hiroko Watanabe, a professor at Tama Art University, president of International Textile Network Japan, and an artist represented in Fiber Futures. The exhibition is a juried show, jointly presented by Japan Society and International Textile Network Japan as part of a long-term collaboration with Tama Art University Museum in Tokyo.

[Image: Hitomi Nagai "Birth" (2011) cotton; waffle weave 79 × 43 × 11 in. Photo: Mareo Suemasa.]

Media

• Sculpture
• Fashion
• Crafts

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