Wowen Histories - richly illustrated volume exploring the inseparable stories of twentieth-century modernist abstraction and textiles. Published on the occasion of an exhibition curated by American, Lynne Cooke, the book offers a fresh and authoritative look at textiles – particularly weaving – as an important force in the development of abstraction as a discipline. This richly illustrated volume features more than fifty creators whose works cross the divisions and hierarchies that previously separated fine art from applied art and craft.
Beginning in the early twentieth century, Woven Histories roots Sophie Taeuber-Arp's abstract art in applied arts and crafts, then features the interdisciplinary practices of Anni Albers, Sonia Delaunay, Liubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, and others who sought to affect social change through fabrics for furniture and clothing.
Throughout the century, the intersection of textiles and abstraction engaged artists from Ed Rossbach, Kay Sekimachi, Ruth Asawa, Lenore Tawney, and Sheila Hicks to Rosemarie Trockel, Ellen Lesperance, Jeffrey Gibson, Igshaan Adams, and Liz Collins, whose textile-based works continue to shape this discourse .
Including essays by prominent art historians as well as reflections from contemporary artists, this ambitious project traces the intertwined histories of textiles and abstraction as tools through which artists examine the pressing questions of our time.
Lynne Cooke is Senior Curator of Special Projects in Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Her work has been published in Burlington Magazine and Artforum as well as in numerous exhibition catalogs and books.
Dimensions: 24 x 28 cm
Pages: 292
Language: English
Author: Lynne Cooke (ed.)
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press