New exhibition at the university gallery Heiligenkreuzer Hof: FABRICS IN SPACE

About the exhibition:

STOFFE IM RAUM / FABRICS IN SPACE 

Textile as an artistic medium can only be thought of in the interweaving of textiles with a cultural and social history, with the development of textile production processes in craft and industrial manufacture, with the global distribution of labour and resources.

This exhibition begins with small, textile pieces, from which the complex systems of the fabric, its materiality, the conditions of its manufacturing and the context of its use can be read. On the basis of these small samples, the textiles could be analysed, enlarged and reproduced, and thus become visible and ready for use once again.

At the centre of the exhibition are sample pieces by artists from the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts (today the University of Applied Arts), the Vienna Workshop, Bauhaus and the Russian Vkhutemas. From there, the exhibition draws connections to works of contemporary artists, whose central concerns are with textiles as a fundamentally political medium which questions the traditional concepts of “high” art, image, object and authorship.

The exhibition emerged out of the initiative of a group of students from the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. It has been coordinated by Ulla Rossek (University of Applied Arts, Vienna) and supported by Sabeth Buchmann (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna).
We would like to thank the Art Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna for their cooperation.