Istanbul Modern is hosting “The Event of a Thread: Global Narratives in
Textiles” exhibition until July 7. “The Event of a Thread” brings together
works comprising objects, paintings, installations and videos by 25 contemporary
artists who use textile materials as a means of expression in
their works and who pursue global narratives through textiles. The exhibition
is named after a quotation from the reference book titled On Weaving
(1965) by Anni Albers, one of the most important artists from the Bauhaus
textile workshops. Believing that socio-cultural and economic movements
affected textiles, Albers, with this consideration for textiles in mind, states
that “Just as it is possible to go from any place to any other, so also, starting
from a defined and specialized field, can one arrive at a realization of
ever-extending relationships. Thus tangential subjects come into view.”
Albers emphasizes that “the event of a thread” lies at the core of every
new development. Weaving threads, which are tackled as a metaphor,
catalyze the interaction between weaving styles, stories and production
techniques from different cultures, and mediate the establishment of new
connections between them.
Organized in collaboration with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations
(ifa, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen), one of the well-established
art institutions in Germany, the exhibition is curated by Susanne Weiss and
Inka Gressel upon the invitation of ifa, and aims to recreate the original
exhibition by establishing new connections in each institution the exhibition
travels to, in company with the curators of each institution and the involvement
of new artists. “The Event of a Thread” connects a wide range
of stories from the tradition of quipu adopted by people living in Andes
Mountains in South America to the textile techniques from the people of
Wichi in Argentina, from Bedri Rahmi Eyuboğlu’s revitalization and reactualization
of the long-forgotten tradition of yazma (hand-painted kerchief)
to Burhan Doğancay’s tapestries created at the Aubusson carpet weaving
workshops. It investigates the diversity of textile materials as a means of
expression by gathering artistic positions that interact with each other in
the exhibition space and questions the historical, social and cultural meanings
of fabric beyond its mere quality as a material.
One of the two special areas of the exhibition has been devoted to Bedri
Rahmi Eyuboğlu (1911-1975), who is one of the first artists to create a
synthesis between painting and embroidery, textiles and yazma traditions
in Turkey. While a selection of the yazma created by the versatile
artist is presented in the exhibition, another selection of his fabric-printing
block plates makes its debut for the first time with “The Event of a
Thread”. The other special area in the exhibition has been dedicated to
Bauhaus. This area hosts a large installation dedicated particularly to the
weaving workshops of Bauhaus, the school that steered art and design
education all around the world subsequent to its foundation by Walter
Gropius in Germany in 1919.
Having set out from Dresden, moved to Kuwait and ultimately made its
way to İstanbul, “The Event of a Thread” exhibition brings together the
different opportunities created by weaving as a multifaceted means of
artistic expression, beyond its surface produced by the systematic and
intertwined coalescence of yarn layers, wefts and warps. Social, cultural
and historical narratives are therefore untied from threads of fabric and
rearranged for us to establish new connections between them.
Artists: Belkıs Balpınar, Ulla von Brandenburg, Hussein Chalayan, Burhan
Doğancay, Noa Eshkol, Andreas Exner, Bedri Rahmi Eyuboğlu, Uli Fischer,
Şakir Gokcebağ, Zille Homma Hamid, Heide Hinrichs, Olaf Holzapfel,
Gozde İlkin, Christa Jeitner, Elisa van Joolen & Vincent Vulsma,
Gulsun Karamustafa, Servet Kocyiğit, Eva Meyer & Eran Schaerf, Karen
Michelsen Castanon, İrfan Onurmen, Judith Raum, Sabire Susuz, Franz
Erhard Walther, and Bauhaus Space, Harald Schmidt Archive, Ziya Tacir
Curators: Susanne Weis, Inka Gressel (ifa, Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen);
Oyku Ozsoy (Istanbul Modern)
Curatorial Team: Umit Mesci, Deniz Pehlivaner
