TEXTILES: OPEN LETTER. How to exhibit textiles?

The seminar will address the question of exhibiting textiles in a contemporary exhibition format. The morning will take the form of an informal workshop with presentations looking at the current positioning of textiles within contemporary art practice and curatorial strategy. Artists and curators will present examples of ways in which they have used textiles to investigate their potential, as material, metaphor and archive within the contemporary art space.

TEXTILES: OPEN LETTER
In a series of discussions, exhibitions, seminars and presentations, OPEN LETTER looks at textiles in contemporary art and at their history, materiality and language. Taking its name from the 1958 tapestry by German Bauhaus artist, teacher and writer Anni Albers, it explores this rich but under-examined field of artistic production and how in recent years it has been taken up once again by practitioners. As one of the oldest cultural techniques, textiles played an essential role in the history of industrialization and modernization. They have been a key component in the organization of culture and society, a central factor in the history of style and the formation of aesthetic language and taste, as well as an indicator of changing ideology and social mores. In the history of fine art, textiles have always played an important, but still undervalued role. Conceptual rather than medium-specific, TEXTILES: OPEN LETTER examines this history in relation to contemporary artistic practice and discourse.

PROGRAM

10.00 – 10.30: Welcome and Introduction, Leire Vergara.

10.30 – 11.15: Grant Watson (Curator, London), Art and the Social Fabric as exhibition and research project

11.15 – 12.00: Leonor Antunes (Artist, Lisbon), The idea of thread

12.00 – 12.15: Coffee Break

12.15 – 13.00: Rike Frank (Curator, Berlin), Materials at an exhibition

13.00 – 13.50: Wendelien van Oldenborg (Artist, Rotterdam), La Javanaise

14.00 – 14.30: Workshop roundup.

TEXTILES: OPEN LETTER is a project by Rike Frank (Berlin/Leipzig), Grant Watson (London), Sabeth Buchmann (Vienna), and Leire Vergara (Bilbao). In collaboration with Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien; Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao; INIVA, London; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst and mzin, Leipzig; Allianz Kulturstiftung, and Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen.

This event is funded by Allianz Kulturstiftung.

Leonor Antunes, is an artist based in Berlin and Lisbon. Antunes uses thread as a material and idea, to look at how such an element is used to create, define and divide space. For her presentation Antunes will talk about the myth of Ariadne’s thread and will present a selection of practices which create webs and nets in space through the use of thread. Antunesʼ recent solo exhibitions include discrepancies with M.G. at Museo El Eco in Mexico City, walk around there. look through here at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, Villa, at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, The Kunstverein Dusseldorf in Germany and the Musee dʼart Moderne de la Ville de Paris in France. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Zurich; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; CAPC Bordeaux, France; and the Singapore Biennial.

Rike Frank is an independent curator based in Berlin. Frank studied film and media theory, art history, and philosophy and is currently working as a freelance writer and curator based in Berlin. She ran the curatorial office at documenta 12 in Kassel and, from 2001 through 2005, was curator at the Vienna Secession, where she realized solo shows and edited catalogues and artist’s books with Ayse Erkmen, Henrik Olesen, Andrea Geyer, Brian Jungen, Silvia Kolbowski, Henrik Håkansson, Ines Doujak, Josephine Pryde, Mary Heilman, Carolina Caycedo, Michael Beutler, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, Christopher Williams, Carola Dertnig, Monica Bonvicini/Sam Durant, and Michael Krebber, as well as MVCBiotechnologies, the first major solo show of Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas (2001). Prior to 2001, she curated numerous exhibitions and programs of film and video with Stefan Gyöngyösi under the label Best Before. Her writings appear regularly in international art magazines and exhibition catalogues. With Astrid Wege and Anders Kreuger, she is responsible for programming at the European Kunsthalle, Cologne. In 2009/2010 the European Kunsthalle was guest curating the exhibition space Ludlow 38 in New York. Since 2010, Rike Frank has been a researcher at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, where she was also curator of the exhibition space until 2012.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam. She will present on her recent film La Javanaise which was presented at the Stedelijk Bureau in Amsterdam in 2012/13. She develops works, which display social conditions by focusing on relations and gestures in the public sphere. The cinematic format is used as a methodology for production and as the basic language for various forms of presentation. Van Oldenborgh often uses the format of a public film shoot, collaborating with participants in different scenarios, to co-produce a script and orientate the work towards its final outcome. Van Oldenborgh has exhibited widely and participated in the Venice Biennial 2011, 4thMoscow Biennial 2011, the 29th Bienal de São Paulo 2010 and the 11th Istanbul Biennial 2009.

Leire Vergara is an independent curator who works and lives in Bilbao. She is a founding member together with Beatriz Cavia, Isabel de Naverán and Miren Jaio of Bulegoa z/b, an independent office for art and knowledge based in Bilbao, created around a common interest in processes of historization, cultural translation, performativity, the body, postcolonialism, social theory, archival strategies and education. Since 2006 till 2009 has worked as chief curator at sala rekalde, Bilbao. During this period her curatorial practice has paid special attention to the production of commissioned projects that encouraged new forms of transcending the limits of the white cube. She also developed a strong commitment with art education through different conferences, workshops and meetings that were pivotal to the exhibitions programme. From 2002 to 2005 co-directed together with Peio Aguirre the independent art production structure called D.A.E (Donostiako Arte Ekinbideak) with base in Donostia-San Sebastián. She has contributed as writer in some art and cultural magazines and catalogues. She is a phd candidate in the programme Curatorial Knowledge within the department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, London and at the University of the Basque Country’s Department of Audiovisual Communication.

Grant Watson is a curator and writer based in London. He works as Senior Curator and Research Associate (part time) at the Institute of International Visual Arts in London (Iniva). At Iniva he has commisioned exhibitions from artists including Nilbar Gures and Sheela Gowda, curated the exhibition Social Fabric (touring to Lund, Mumbai, Stuttgart and Berlin) and organised a series of Keyword lectures with speakers including Judith Butler, Coco Fusco and the Otolith Group (which will subsequently be realised as the exhibition Keywords in 2013 in collaboration with Tate). As curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA) 2006 – 2010 his projects included the exhibitions Santhal Family positions around an Indian sculpture, Cornelius Cardew, Search for the Spirit and Textiles Art and the Social Fabric as well as an earlier Keywords lecture series. He was previously the Curator of Visual Arts at Project in Dublin between 2001 and 2006 where he focused on solo commissions from contemporary Irish and international artists as well as themed projects such as a series on communism that included an exhibition, book and radio programme. Watson has worked with modern and contemporary Indian art since the mid 1990s, researching this subject for documenta 12, as well as co curating the exhibition Nasreen Mohamedi: Notes at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) which toured to five European venues. Current projects also include Open Letter an investigation into art and textiles which is supported by the Allianz Kulturstiftung and commissioned writing for catalogues and journals. Watson studied Curating and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College London where he is currently a PhD candidate, he is Researcher in Performance with If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam) and visiting Professor at the Dutch Art Institute (Arnhem).