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7/11/2007

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery

Museum of Arts & Design - MAD, New York

Radically Reinventing a Handcraft Tradition

Stone, digital prints, even human hair and cosmetic skin peel are some of the unexpected materials used by 48 artists from 17 countries to create the startling embroidered works featured in the exhibition Pricked: Extreme Embroidery.

Showcasing the diversity of new approaches to this time-honored needleworking technique, Pricked is the Museum of Arts & Design’s latest exploration into how centuries-old handcraft traditions are reinvented in the mainstream of contemporary art and design. The 60 featured works use embroidery to convey powerful, provocative, and often satirical commentary on contemporary society, politics, and personal history.

On view at the Museum of Arts & Design from November 8, 2007, through March 9, 2008, Pricked: Extreme Embroidery follows the success and international acclaim of Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, which premiered at MAD earlier this year and is now on national tour. Like Radical Lace, this new exhibition challenges the way the public views the contemporary evolution of an ancient art.

David Revere McFadden, the Museum’s chief curator and organizer of the exhibition, says, “When embroidery began to surface in the world of contemporary art in the last decades of the 20th century, it was often embraced by female artists because of its traditional identification with women’s work. Today, male and female artists around the world are using stitching techniques to address personal and global issues in an astonishing range of pictorial, sculptural, and even architectural applications.”

The exhibition features pieces by artists such as Elaine Reichek, whose groundbreaking use of embroidery catapulted the technique onto the main stage of contemporary art, and Italian artist Angelo Filomeno, internationally recognized for his sumptuously embroidered canvases, alongside those of emerging talents. In addition, works by designers such as Mattia Bonetti document the use of embroidery techniques in the sphere of contemporary design.

“As in Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, the Museum is playing a leadership role with this new exhibition, encouraging artists to explore innovative ways to bring the heritage of craft into the 21st century, and to employ new mediums and materials,” says Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Arts & Design. “These exhibitions are part of a series that breaks down the barriers between genres to study how artistic techniques and materials thousands of years old are being interpreted by new artists in startling ways.”

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery is organized thematically into six sections:

NEITHER MORE NOR LESS
(Humpty Dumpty, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

Words and images have been combined in traditional embroidered samplers for more than 500 years, and it is not surprising that many contemporary artists using embroidery reference this heritage in their work. Each of the 10 artists highlighted in this section give their own twist to the convention. Highlights include Dutch artist Tilleke Schwarz’s embroidered texts and images which are selected from her daily life and range from letters to editors that have caught her attention to images from television.

Elaine Reichek uses hand and machine embroidery to record the first telegraph message sent by Samuel F. B. Morse on May 24, 1844—“what hath God wrought”—on an 80-foot long scrim. The translation of language into visual imagery is adopted by prominent feminist artist Judy Chicago in an embroidered painting based on the maxim “It’s Always Darkest before the Dawn.”

POLITICS IS NOT A SCIENCE
(Count Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898)

The intersection of politics and art is revealed in the work of several artists presented in Pricked. America Christa Maiwald embroiders the faces of the powerful dictators of our time on delicate little girls' dresses. Mexican artist Ana de la Cueva's video shows a digital embroidery machine stitching the contours of the United States and Mexico highlighting the planned wall to keep out illegal aliens in bright red thread, all to the tunes of Mexican and American popular music. Israeli artist Dafna Kaffeman's handkerchiefs embroidered with the phrase "Arabic Is Not Spoken Here" in Hebrew and Arabic were made in response to conflicting cultures in Israel today.

WHATEVER IS WELL SAID BY ANOTHER IS MINE
(Seneca, 1st century Roman writer)

This section explores the work of artists who adopt, appropriate or quote images and ideas from other sources, including art history and popular culture, in their embroidered works.

Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti, working with master embroiderers in China, has created a full-size sofa, covered entirely with stitched depictions of pages from popular Chinese magazines. Los Angeles-based artist Maria E. Piñeres embroiders portraits of celebrities who have been arrested, such as Mel Gibson and Robert Downey, Jr. Mark Newport has created a full-sized bed spread of embroidered comic books heroes as a way of exploring masculinity and identity.

MEMORY IS WHAT MAKES OUR LIVES
(Luis Buñuel)

Paddy Hartley, a London multi-media artist, uses his extensive research into the lives and families of disfigured World War I soldiers as the basis for his reconstructed military uniforms that are embroidered with texts and images related to the specific soldier.

Memor of an entirely different sort is made tangible by American Nava Lubelski, who embroiders stained found linens to transform the accidents of mistakes into dynamic abstract patterns. Peter Hellsing of Sweden records the poignant personal histories of immigrants who live in the artist's Stockholm suburb on chairs and pillows installed as domestic vignettes.

BODIES NEVER LIE
(Agnes de Mille, American choreographer, 1905-1993)

The human figure is central to the work of many artists in the exhibition. Kate Kretz uses her own hair and that of her boyfriend to embroider a pair of pillow cases with images of eyes closed in sleep, and a hank of hair covering the image of an ear in works titled Ebb and My Young Lover. Japanese artist Shimuzu Kimura "sketches" from live models using needle and thread. German artist Sybille Hotz created large-scale stuffed human figures drawn from first-aid manuals and medical books. Orly Cogan embroiders found linens that have been previously embroidered with flowers, animals, and hearts with nude self-portraits and animal fantasies. Laura Splan, whose work is created at the point of intersection of medicine and art, will show a new work -- Trousseau, an embroidered nightdress created from a cosmetic skin peel taken from her own body.

SHADOWS NUMBERLESS
(John Keats, English poet, 1795-1821 Ode to a Nightingale)

Examination of the shadowy areas of consciousness is at the core of work by eight of the artists included in Pricked. Emily Hermany of Canada creates a "lying booth" surrounded by a veil printed with liew and with three-dimensional script lies pinned into the adjacent walls. Museum visitors may enter the booth and contribute their own lies as part of this ongoing project.

Italian artist Angelo Filomeno, who learned embroidery as a child and today is a master in the form, has created a wide panel titled Death of Blinded Philosopher. It depicts a skeleton whose eye sockets have been violated by alaws, facing a blood red explosion of tendrils and blossoms attacked by flies and cockroaches. Paul Villinski's wall sculpture Lament is made up of hundreds of abandoned or lost gloves collected from New York Streets, assembled as a massive pair of black bird's wings.

Catalogue and Programs

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of public and educational programs designed to appeal to widely varying audiences, encompassing artists’ demonstrations, performances, workshops and lectures. Programs are currently in development.

The four-color, illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition will include a foreward by the Museum's director, Holly Hotchner; an essay by David Revere McFadden, chief curator, interprets the works as a body and contextualizes them within current trends in the designed decorative arts; photographs and commentaries on each work in the exhibition; and artist biographies. The catalogue will be designed by Linda Florio, who created the award-winning catalogue for Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, and published by the Museum of Arts & Design.

Image: Sonya Clark, American, born 1967 Afro Abe II, 2007. Hand-embroidered, French knotted thread on five dollar bill. Overall: 3 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (8.3 x 15.9 cm). Collection of the artist

For more information, please contact:
Patrick Keeffe
Public Relations Office 212-956-3535, ext. 113 patrick.keeffe@madmuseum.org

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery is made possible in part by the Inner Circle and Director's Council of the Museum, with additional support from Friends of Fiber Art International.

Open Daily 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Thursdays 10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Admission:
$9.00 for adults
$7.00 for students and seniors

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