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When dressing up becomes an art form
Conrad Astley19/ 5/2006
THE phrase "textile art" conjures up images of twee embroidery
and crochet smocks made by your granny.
But a new exhibition opening in Sale shows the craft has moved as
far away from this image as is possible.
One of the pieces displayed in Threadbare, opening at the town's
Waterside Arts Centre tomorrow (Saturday) is an installation
featuring various pieces of clothing hanging by meat hooks from an
iron bar.
The installation, by German fibre artist Jeanette Sendler, was
originally put on as a performance piece in Berlin and London, and
also featured a naked woman hanging from the bar.
Curator Lesley Sutton, who is also the centre's artist in
residence, admitted the Sale version would not feature a naked
woman, but said the piece demonstrated how far the concept of
textile art had gone.
The piece was based on US poet Richard McCann's book Ghost Letters,
about a young man who is left behind after his lover dies of
Aids.
ANOTHER piece in the exhibition is by Shelly Goldsmith, winner
of the prestigious Jerwood prize for textile art, and is based
around a child's dress rescued after a flood at a children's home
in Cincinnati.
The dress was printed with images of natural disasters and the
piece was made just after the Asian tsunami.
And two of Lesley's own pieces - dresses which she made from sheets
of steel - will also be displayed.
One of the pieces - Bound By Fear - is a corset made from steel,
while another called For Better For Worse is a steel wedding dress.
The artist said: "Textile art gets a very bad press but anyone who
sees these pieces will realise there's much more to it than the
twee pieces of embroidery you might usually think of.
"Some of this work is looking at traditional arts that have been
lost, but the artists are trying to do it in a new way.
"I don't know why we're so far behind as a nation but, in the US
and Japan, textiles are seen as a major art form."
Lesley has also organised a six-month project with art students
from South Trafford College, who have created their own versions of
some of the pieces.
The exhibition opens at Sale Waterside Arts Centre on May
20 and runs until July 15.
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