So, a weaver has been given a solo show at Tate Modern. It’s about time considering the formal and architectural nature of the medium (and I’m speaking as a non-weaver) and how would art have progressed without canvas?
The familiar story of a woman not permitted to attend the same courses as a man meant that Anni Albers joined the textile class at the Bauhaus where her teachers included Paul Klee, one of whose watercolours from the show is below.
The connections between drawing, painting and weaving are preciously close…
Keep enlarging and looking to see architectural construction made of pure three-dimensional colour.
Her explorations included sensitive drawings of yarn and knotting then,
when the physicality of weaving began to be onerous, she expanded into printing: these debossed pieces demonstrate her train of thought, retaining a sense of three-dimensionality.
I loved this labyrinthine and sculptural knot from the end of the show. It could be a belt or a road system from a megatropolis depending on scale & materials. What do you see?
