At her Warsaw home, Maria Katarzyna Krętowska is surrounded by memories of her grandmother — the Polish artist Barbara Levittoux-Swiderska (1933-2019). Her former studio remains dotted with collages and paintings, as well as small examples of the textile pieces she started making in the 1960s — sculptural, nature-inspired and often large-scale forms that at the time were groundbreaking.
“Her works can be so minimalistic and yet have huge impact,” says Katarzyna Krętowska, recalling how the dramatic, draping netlike structures were “made loop by loop with natural sisal”, and how dying the yarns was a “tricky, tricky process”, carried out in the kitchen sink. “She was a very active artist, she had exhibitions all over the world and won some awards, but it didn’t make her famous.”
Now, however, Levittoux-Swiderska’s work is being highlighted by Richard Saltoun gallery in Textile Pioneers, a booth at the Brafa art fair (January 28-February 4) in Brussels, dedicated to the women artists who made bold statements with traditional tapestry techniques in the 1960s and 1970s. “They are finally getting some well-deserved visibility,” says the show’s curator Sonja Teszler.
As well as pieces by fellow Polish trailblazers Ewa Pachucka (1936-2020) and Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017) — whose bold woven sculptures were the subject of last year’s Tate Modern exhibition Every Tangle of Thread and Rope — there are several works by Croatian artist Jagoda Buić (1930-2022). A highlight is the off-white, woven wall-hanging “White Reflections” (1970-75) — “a beautiful example of the artist’s monumental textiles inspired by the movement of the sea outside her studio in Croatia”, says Teszler.
Two of Richard Saltoun’s featured artists are now in their nineties and still working: Bologna-based Greta Schödl — whose “signature vocabulary of repetitive letters and symbols,” says Teszler, will feature in the upcoming Venice Biennale — and Colombian artist Olga de Amaral. The latter’s work can be densely woven — the wall hanging on show at Brafa is a brawny, flame-coloured interlacing of wool and horsehair — or delicate and diaphanous, hanging in strands from the ceiling or coated in gold leaf.
“At 91 years old, Olga has created remarkable sculptures for the past seven decades, and is still a dynamic and creative force,” says Kaeli Deane, a director at Lisson Gallery, which has shown her work in its New York, Hamptons and London spaces. Her retrospective To Weave a Rock — shown at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Detroit’s Cranbrook Art Museum in 2021 — will be followed by a solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris this autumn.
“The art world is increasingly shining a light on artists working in the realm of fibre art”, says Deane, highlighting the recent exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art titled Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction.
At the Turner Contemporary in Margate, textile work is a key component of Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, 1950-1970 (February 3-May 6), a group exhibition of more than 50 women artists. It spans sculptural work by US artists Sheila Hicks and Lenore Tawney (1907-2007); the subtly subversive work of Polish artists Maria Teresa Chojnacka (1931-2023) and Pachucka; and the vibrant wall hangings of Indian weaver and craft activist Nelly Sethna (1932-92).
But while the 1960s were a hotbed of textile talent, today a new generation has been making a significant mark on the medium — from queer South African artist Igshaan Adams’s vast beaded tapestries (recently shown at Thomas Dane’s London gallery) to Billie Zangewa’s intimate stitched silk collages (at Glasgow’s Tramway until Jan 28).
Textile art is undoubtedly trending. “It is on the same path as ceramics,” suggests Beatrix Bourdon, managing director of the Brafa art fair. “Textiles offer an incredible diversity of artistic expression, and increasingly explore themes related to social justice, feminism and identity.”
For Wells Fray-Smith, the curator of the Barbican’s upcoming exhibition Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art (February 13-May 26), textiles are inherently “a social fabric, embedded with ideas about gender, class, race, labour, production”, she says. “In this political moment, textiles have been extraordinarily fertile.”
The wide-ranging survey will feature some 50 global, intergenerational artists. Abakanowicz, for instance, is represented by “Vêtement Noir” (1968) — “one of her massive, enveloping Abakan sculptures”, says Fray-Smith. “It looks almost like a lung: a huge, folded, living, breathing mass.” Installations by Hicks and Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña will accompany pieces by Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois and Jeffrey Gibson.
“Contemporary artists don’t need to defend textiles any more,” says Fray-Smith, whose selection of up-and-coming talent includes the striking, hand-sewn soft sculptures of 31-year-old Canadian artist Tau Lewis as well as Adams’s mesmerising beadwork.
“Textile art has appealed through the ages as a means of enhancing living spaces; now we are seeing a deeper consideration of international heritage and cultural and personal identity,” says Isobel Dennis, the director of London’s Collect craft fair, who has noticed a rise in textile pieces being shown over the past few years. At the next edition (March 1-3), more than 25 textile makers will be represented. Examples such as Colombian-born Juan Arango Palacios’s vibrantly woven memories and fantasies and British-Iranian Batool Showghi’s stitched collages contain “some powerful narratives”, adds Dennis. “They are certainly pushing the boundaries of their craft.”
brafa.art; January 28-February 4
Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on X or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
