Radiance from the Rainforest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, By Heidi King. Tribal Art, no. 48 (spring 2008), p. 64-67.
Available in print in the Goldwater Library (A W97 No. 48 (Spring 2008)) or Online via WilsonWeb.
Crown
Chimú 14th–15th century
Fiber, hide, reeds, copper, feathers; H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Jane Costello Goldberg, from the Collection of Arnold I. Goldberg, 1986 (1987.394.655)
Reblogged from the Textile Museum web site:
BLUE
April 4 - September 18, 2008
> Hiroyuki Shindo, Shindigo Space 07 (detail), 2006. 'Shindigo shibori'-dyed cotton and hemp and Shindigo balls (polystyrene wrapped with hemp and dip-dyed). Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Joel Chester Fildes.
The human perception of color is a complex sensory phenomenon filtered through the eyes, brain, language and multiple layers of social experience. While shades of red (examined in the 2007 Textile Museum exhibition RED) quicken the pulse and increase blood pressure, blue induces a calming effect and is widely perceived as a “cool,” tranquil color.
> Kain panjang (long cloth, hip wrapper) detail, Indonesia, Yogyakarta (in the style of Ceribon), Chinese-Indonesian, 20th century. Commercial cotton, resist patterning. The Textile Museum 1998.11.16. Gift of Beverly Deffef Labin Collection.
BLUE explores the creation and meaning of the color blue on textiles produced across time and place, with particular emphasis on contemporary artists’ use of natural indigo dyes. Until the invention of chemical dyes in the late 19th century, peoples worldwide relied largely on indigo-bearing plants to achieve blue-colored garments, household furnishings, artworks and even body paint. Many cultures attributed talismanic properties as well as health benefits to indigo, and the mysterious transformation of this temperamental dye has long been steeped in myth and magic ....
BLUE is curated by Lee Talbot, Assistant Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, and Mattiebelle Gittinger, Research Associate, Southeast Asian Textiles.
Associated Events:
(Registration required)
April 10
BLUE Lecture Series: "A Passion for Indigo: My Fascination with the Exotic Past and Exciting Future of this Unique Dyestuff"
Jenny Balfour-Paul, Scholar and Artist
Thursday, 6:30 pm
April 24
BLUE Lecture Series: "African Blues"
Lisa Aronson, Associate Professor of Art History, Skidmore College
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 1
BLUE Lecture Series: "Transforming Blue: From Seed to Dye, Indigo in Contemporary Japan"
Rowland Ricketts, III, Artist
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 15
BLUE Lecture Series: "Indigo Immortal: The History and Global Culture of Levi's Jeans"
Lynn Downey, Historian, Levi Strauss and Company
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 22
BLUE Lecture Series: "Indigo: A Personal Journey"
Hiroyuki Shindo, Artist and Mary Lance, Filmmaker
Thursday, 6:30 pm
Left: Sasa, 2004, Aluminium and Copper Wire. Collection Centre Pompidou, Paris
Right: El Anatsui, Selfridges Installation, London, 2005
via NYTimes, Images courtesy of October Gallery (UK), additional linkage provided by RGL.
Inside Art, by CAROL VOGEL
Published: January 4, 2008AFRICAN SCULPTURE
A wall of the Metropolitan Museum’s African galleries will be covered on Tuesday in a shimmering textilelike metal tapestry, fashioned from aluminum, copper wire and bottle caps. The piece, “Between Earth and Heaven,” by the Ghana-born artist El Anatsui, is the first major work of contemporary African sculpture acquired by the Met.
“El Anatsui is the most important contemporary African sculptor working today,” said Alisa LaGamma, a curator in the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas department. “This is a great bridge between the historical works in the collection and one of its major contemporary masters.”
“Between Earth and Heaven,” created in 2006, refers to the West African tradition of strip-woven textiles, in particular the kente cloth made by Akan and Ewe weavers in Ghana. These classical textiles are both monumental in scale and highly sculptural.
“One of his goals is to evoke the kinetic qualities of cloth in a different, more permanent medium,” said Ms. LaGamma, adding that she expects the tapestry to remain on view until March 2009.
Between Earth and Heaven (detail), 2006. Aluminium and Copper Wire, 230cm x 320cm. Image courtesy of October Gallery (UK)
With its gold, red and black color scheme, the hanging looks as finely woven as silk, yet Mr. Anatsui used only found materials.
At last summer’s Venice Biennale he created a sensation with a pair of tapestrylike hangings fashioned from discarded soda cans that evoked the luster of a Gustav Klimt painting. (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., acquired one of them.) His work is also in a show, “Zebra Crossing,” opening Friday at the Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea.
An exhibition of Mr. Anatsui’s work, at the University of Arizona through Jan. 20, will open in March at the Smithsonian’s National Museum for African Art.
Neue Erkenntnisse zum Tocapu-Symbolsystem am Beispiel eines Männerhemdes der Inkazeit in der Altamerika-Sammlung des Linden Museum / Christiane Clados
(A Key Checkerboard Pattern Tunic of the Linden-Museum Stuttgart: First Steps in Breaking the Tocapu Code?)
Tribus: Jahrbuch des Linden-Museums, Band 56 (2007), pp. 71-106.
Left: unku con tocapu de "llave" / Foto: Yukata Yoshii
[source]
"The tocapu symbol system of Wari and Inca cultures belongs to the most impressive aspects of material culture of prehispanic South America. Although progress has been done in the past years the meaning and function of the tocapus remains unclear. This chapter presents new results about tocapus by analyzing a fragment of an Inca key checkerboard pattern tunic of the Linden Museum Stuttgart (Linden-Museum Stuttgart, Germany, 1167.771) which up to now has never been discussed in former publications ... It is a Quompi weaving.
"Consistent with the results of the iconographic analysis the author suggests an interpretation of the Inca key checkerboard pattern tunic of the Linden Museum in relation to representations of (mythical) serpents." -- Excerpted from Abstract
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