Textile art - 11 examples
Textile art is an art form that involves the design and creation of artistic and decorative pieces using various fibers and materials. It’s a broad genre of art that uses natural or synthetic fibers to produce functional, creative, or decorative objects. It cuts across practically all cultures and represents one of the oldest art forms and human expertise.
Techniques for creating textile art vary greatly and may include looping, pleating, felting, knitting, crocheting, and weaving, all of which result in a wide array of materials like wool, silk, rayon, etc.
This form of art has, for many years, served many purposes, ranging from practical, for instance, clothes, to decorative, as in rugs and tapestries. A burgeoning list of iconic artists has taken a liking to textile art, including Alighiero Boetti, Faith Ringgold, and Betye Saar.
“It would be nice to be two people – one all aware and real, the other all dreamy and unconscious – who go hand in hand, without ever mingling,” – Alighiero Boetti. Childhood Alighiero Boetti was a prominent Italian Conceptual artist and Arte Povera movement member. As he grew up in Turin, Italy, where …
Alighiero Boetti’s Arazzi – Tapestry made in Pashtunistan Read More
Who was Otti Berger? Otti Berger is a respected name in the corridors of art history. The esteemed textile artist and weaver studied and later taught at the Bauhaus when it was still at the height of popularity in Germany. Born in present-day Croatia, Berger was one of the few female students and educators at …
What made Otti Berger’s Bauhaus textile work so influential? Read More
About Yinka Shonibare Leading UK contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare is an Honored Member of the Order of the British Empire, which is why the moniker MBE has become integral to his title. As one of the most revered and well-recognized contemporary artists in the world today, the name Yinka is synonymous with historical allusions. What …
Yinka Shonibare’s The End of Empire Read More
Anni Albers was a well known German textile artist and prominent printmaker. She is perhaps one of the most well-known print artists of the 20th century. Albers dared to go where no textile designer had gone before, which in part helped to launch her designs into popularity. Born in Berlin, Albers became a student …
Why was Anni Albers a leading textile artist? Read More
Joe Namy’s curtain installation For his Sharjah Biennial 13 project, artist and composer Joe Namy’s has researched the influence of opera on music in the Arab world. Starting in Egypt with the founding of the Khedivial Opera House in 1869, he has found traces of the art form in Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, and more recently, …
Joe Namy’s colorful & oversized curtain partially covers museum Read More
The prelude Afghan trade in war rugs booming 3 min 50 sec Every time there is war in a region, the locals look for ways to ease their frustration in an effort to remain hopeful. Afghanistan has been at war for a long time and while most people are aware of …
The war rugs of Afghanistan Read More
Why did Do Ho Suh create this work? South Korean artist Do Ho Suh created an installation based on his New York home. It serves to highlight the permeable margins that are said to disconnect private and public in addition to the normalized concepts of global identity, space and place, diasporic movement, memory, and displacement. …
Do Ho Suh – Almost home? An entire apartment recreated in museum Read More
Pistoletto’s rise to fame Born in 1933 in Biella, Italy, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s was among the first interpreters of the radical renewal of artistic language, both socially and aesthetically, in the early 1960s. He was also one of the protagonists of Arte Povera. Pistoletto began to gain recognition in the mid-1950s, particularly after creating his first …
Michelangelo Pistoletto’s nude Venus inspects a rag of clothes (sfw) Read More
Collective Subconscious Collective Subconscious is a large-scale interactive installation created by Beijing-based artist Yin Xiuzhen. She has spent the last twenty-five years creating and displaying works that reflect her surrounding environment and her relationship with it. Her works are usually personal and environmentally engaging and typically site-specific. Collective Subconscious, which is composed of a bisected …
Yin Xiuzhen & her 14 meter minibus Collective Unconscious Read More
Is there a better reflection of a culture than the creatives living in it? From painters to photographers to poets, the voice of our moment is often told most aptly and timelessly through what they create. The same goes for Erin M. Riley. She has taken a look at both her own and the …
Erin M. Riley interview – Nothing is off limits (NSFW) Read More
The story behind Boetti’s Maps of the World The Mappa tapestries are some of the most important works by Alighiero Boetti. Upon his first arrival in Afghanistan in 1971, Boetti began a continuous collaboration with local weavers to produce embroidered tapestries, using himself only as the referential artist but considering the works a creation of …
Alighiero Boetti’s beautiful Maps of the World Read More
