Sheila Hicks Exhibition

Sikkema, Jenkins & Co

poster for Sheila Hicks Exhibition

This event has ended.

For over 50 years, Sheila Hicks has expanded the boundaries of the woven form to create a distinctive and innovative body of work that defies traditional categorization into the fields of fine art, craft, design, and architecture. While constantly innovating with the use of novel materials and forms, Hicks’ work continues to reflect her early art training. A student of Josef Albers at Yale in the 1950s, color remains a central concern for Hicks. Awarded a Fulbright scholarship to paint in Chile, Hicks photographed indigenous weavers and archeological sites in the Andes. This, along with extended trips throughout Peru, Bolivia and the volcanic region of Villarrica, the island of Chiloé, and Tierra del Fuego, reinforced Hicks’ interest in the textile vocabulary as an artistic medium which she continues to expand today.

The current exhibition revisits and reimagines The Treaty of Chromatic Zones, a monumental bas-relief of pure pigmented fiber originally realized for Art Basel Unlimited in June of 2015. Hicks showcases the supple and flexible qualities of her materials, sometimes deconstructing and reassembling previously used entities to explore their infinite possibilities of form and movement. The Evolving Tapestry: He/She, 1967-68, in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, exemplifies this idea: thousands of spun, twisted, bound and stacked yarns of linen and silk are amassed and morph into different shapes and structures each time the work is installed. Compass Arica, 2012-13, is typical of this ongoing series of sculptures by the artist.

Also on view is a presentation of intimately scaled hand-woven works created continuously over the entirety of Hicks’ career, which she refers to as minimes. The minimes often reference the extensive reach of her engagement with vastly different cultures both in their titles and in the porcupine quills, shells, exotic silks or rubber bands that are integrated.

Sheila Hicks (b.1934, Hastings, Nebraska) received BFA (1957) and MFA (1959) degrees from the Yale School of Art.

Hicks first solo weaving exhibitions took place at Galeria Antonio Souza, Mexico City (1961) and The Art Institute of Chicago (1963). Numerous solo exhibitions worldwide have followed. In 2010, a major retrospective, Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Other recent solo presentations include the exhibition Foray into Chromatic Zones, at the Hayward Gallery in London (2015) and a large-scale installation entitled Baôli in the Grande Rotonde at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2014-15).

Her work is also currently on view in solo exhibitions at Espace Louis Vuitton München in Munich, Germany through January 23, 2016 as well as the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis through December 27, 2015. She will be the subject of upcoming solo exhibitions at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska (2016); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Puebla, Mexico (2016); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017). She will also participate in the Biennale of Sydney and the Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art, China (both 2016).

Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2010). She was named a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 1987, and elevated to Officier in 1993. Additionally, she holds Honorary Doctorates from the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris (2014) and the Rhode Island School of Design (1984). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Pérez Art Museum, Miami.

Sheila Hicks has resided and worked in Paris since 1964.

Media

Schedule

from October 22, 2015 to November 28, 2015

Opening Reception on 2015-10-22 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Sheila Hicks

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