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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
TIMBUKTU TO TIBET
Rugs and Textiles of the Hajji Babas
October 18, 2008 - March 8, 2009
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Tiger pelt rug, Tibet, 20th century, Bruce Westcott. Photo by Don Tuttle Photography.
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Textiles are expressions of the lives of all peoples. As social currency, textiles reveal a great deal about an individual’s wealth, social status, occupation, and religious and ethnic associations, as well as a culture’s values, codes and social order. Textiles support commerce and delight us with their color and ornament. Within the diverse cultural traditions, lifestyles, fashions, and technologies represented by textiles, however, there are common threads that bind us together. People around the world use textiles to meet physical, aesthetic and spiritual needs: clothing themselves, defining their living spaces and performing their rituals.
One of the determining factors in how textiles have been made, decorated and used from Africa to East Asia is whether the people creating them are nomadic or settled. The textiles produced by these two divergent societies differ greatly in terms of their aesthetic, technical, and functional qualities, although, because of their continuous interaction, nomadic and settled people have shaped each others’ textile traditions.
Textiles’ functions and modes of production are often defined by the maker and the circumstances in which they live. These two points are an integral part of any discussion on the subject of textile art and history. Organizing textiles by social origin or according to the circumstances in which they were made and used allows us to see a more comprehensive picture of the different artistic categories.
Timbuktu to Tibet: Rugs and Textiles of the Hajji Babas is curated by Sumru Belger Krody, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections.
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Press Release (pdf)
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Available Images
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Image Descriptions (pdf)
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Educational Programs (pdf)
The
Finishing Touch: Accessories from the Bolivian Highlands
February
15, 2008 - February 1, 2009
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Coca
bag, Bolivia, northern Potosí, possibly Laymí,
1950-75. The Textile Museum 2007.29.18. Latin American
Research Fund.
Knitted
bag, probably La Paz, Bolivia, early to mid-20th century.
The Textile Museum 2007.37.7.
Latin American Research
Fund.
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Now visitors
to The Textile Museum have more time to explore the liveliness
and diversity of woven and knitted textiles from the Bolivian
Andes in The Finishing Touch: Accessories from the Bolivian
Highlands. The exhibition, originally scheduled to
close on September 18, 2008, has been extended through February 1, 2009.
The
Finishing Touch features a charming group of belts, bags
and other accessories made and used by the indigenous people
of the Bolivian highlands. A large group of traditional Bolivian
textiles acquired by the Museum in late 2007 inspired the
exhibition and comprises the bulk of the more than 100 objects
on view. Complementing these objects are other Andean textiles
drawn from The Textile Museum's collection. The belts, bags
and other accessories in the exhibition, although small, are
often invested with great care and even more fully decorated
than larger shawls and ponchos.
The broad
range of techniques, patterns and items in the exhibition
reflects the many regional variations that characterize the
cultural wealth of the Bolivian highlands. The Finishing
Touch: Accessories from the Bolivian Highlands is organized
by Ann P. Rowe, curator of Western Hemisphere Collections.
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Release (pdf)
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Available Images
UPCOMING
EXHIBITIONS
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Manchu woman’s robe, China, late 19th century. The Textile Museum 2007.13.4. Donated by Elizabeth Ickes.
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Recent Acquisitions
March 6, 2009 - January 3, 2010
In the past eight decades, The Textile Museum’s collection has grown from a modest group of 275 rugs and 60 related textiles to nearly 18,000 objects from around the world. Each year, through the generosity of private donors and through income from endowed funds, the Museum’s holdings continue to evolve.
This exhibition will celebrate the Museum’s rich collection and share with the public a selection of 20 of the most artistically and culturally compelling objects The Textile Museum has acquired within the last five years. Exhibited objects will include hats from Peru and Cameroon and a turban from India; a contemporary batik from Java, Indonesia; a Turkish prayer rug; a grass raincoat from China; and an ikat coat from the Megalli Collection, which was donated in 2005 and will be featured in a Textile Museum exhibition planned for 2010.
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Center Diamond, circa 1920-1940,
maker unknown.
Probably made in Lancaster County, PA.
International Quilt Study Center & Museum, 2003.003.0071. |
Constructed Color:
Amish Quilts
April 4 – August 16, 2009
Amish quilts are among the most striking and famous of all American quilt types. Renowned for their play of color and strong geometric patterns, their similarities to modern art have been noted ever since the 1971 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York entitled Abstract Design in American Quilts. The parallels are perhaps most striking with regard to color field paintings and art that explores the manipulation of visual effect.
This exhibition, on loan from the International Quilt Study Center of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will feature 30 examples from the center’s highly regarded collection. The quilts represent three specific regional groups, each with its own distinctive features, drawn from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, from Midwestern communities and from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. Each of these Amish communities produces unique quilts that reflect the availability of materials, influences from non-Amish neighbors, and the relative conservatism of individual communities as determined by their Ordnung, or community guidelines. The objects which will be on view in the exhibition represent some of the finest Amish quilts in the world.
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Dress, Fall/Winter 1990/91 (Pleated red dress), Issey Miyake (b. 1938), Japan.
The Mary Baskett Collection.
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Contemporary Japanese Fashion:
The Mary Baskett Collection
Oct. 17, 2009 – April 11, 2010
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto shocked the fashion world by introducing avant-garde styles that challenged received Western notions of “chic.” Informed in part by Japanese traditions such as the kimono, obi and the art of origami, these designers produced radical garments with shapes and textures often incongruous with the natural contours of the human body. Their designs—characterized by asymmetry, raw edges, unconventional construction, oversized proportions and monochromatic palettes—effectively overthrew existing norms and set the stage for the postmodernist movement in the fashion industry. Miyake, Yamamoto, and Kawakubo remain three of the most successful designers in today’s fashion world, and under their tutelage a new generation of Japanese talent has emerged.
This exhibition, which was originally shown at the Cincinnati Art Museum, will include garments from the collection of Mary Baskett, an art dealer and former curator of prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum who has been collecting and wearing Japanese high fashion since the 1960s.
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