London (AFP)
Weaving, embroidery, sewing ... Long ignored by Western contemporary art by sexism and ethnocentrism, the textile world is now prized with artists who explore this heritage in the light of the news.
At the "Frieze", London's prestigious contemporary art fair set in the heart of a park in the British capital until Sunday, a new section called "Woven" (in French) is devoted to textile fiber.
Weaving, very present in Southeast Asia, "is one of the languages that has always been central in the practice of art in the world but it has been marginalized as a women's work by a dominant male gaze, but also by Eurocentrism ", explains to curator Cosmin Costinas, who wanted with" Woven "to open the dialogue on" the unresolved colonial heritage of the United Kingdom ".
- Change of "hierarchy" -
In particular, the works of the Indian Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949-2015) who used a kind of rope of hemp to make monumental woven sculptures or those of the American-Philippine Pacita Abad (1946-2004), mistress in trapunto ", a technique of points that gives a stuffed effect to his pieces, including the imposing" LA Liberty ", representing a Statue of Liberty multicolored to evoke the American dream of migrants.
"For many people, weaving was seen as craftsmanship unlike art, with a kind of hierarchy at play, but it changes with a world of art that looks (more and more) over- Beyond traditional practices, to ceramics or textiles for example, "said Amrita Jhaveri, owner of the Jhaveri Contemporary Gallery, which presents the weavings of the Indian Monika Correa.
The recognition of this art also goes through its reappropriation.
In the art of weaving, "there is the idea of weaving, weaving, intermingling (...) to find a way to connect the very old and the very recent," said AFP Chitra Ganesh, American artist of Indian origin of 44 years. Her feminist works are full of mythological connotations while incorporating "mass produced materials" such as industrial bags of potatoes, fur falls, animal skins ...
- From "submission" to "rebellion" -
Even more surprising, the sewing thread of the Hong Kong Angela Su: hair.
For his series of works entitled "Sewing together my split mind", the punk-inspired artist was inspired by the pro-democracy protests that have been going on for several months in Hong Kong, a former British colony that crosses its worst political crisis since its return to Beijing in 1997.
The central painting represents a brain to evoke "the schizophrenic identity of Hong Kong": "We do not know if we are Chinese or Hongkong or British ... we are a mixture of all that," said the artist.
"Of course, sewing symbolizes the domesticity and submissiveness of women in the past" but "I do not want it to be sewing is seen as traditional", it is today "also a form of rebellion", has it she assured, showing one of his works representing lips sewn with hair to denounce "the suppression of the freedom of expression".
Cian Dayrit, a 30-year-old Filipino artist, chose embroidery to tackle colonialism and neo-colonialism.
In archival photographs of Filipinos, taken in the early 19th century by American settlers, he embroidered idealist political messages and maps of modern cities with colorful threads. A "counter-mapping" to denounce urban projects that have mainly resulted in the displacement of local populations, according to the artist. "All these ambitious development projects are actually dispossessing people," he told AFP, hoping with his art to mix techniques to "expose the ills of a neocolonial present".
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