Contemporary art enthusiasts who frequent fairs and major international exhibitions will certainly have noticed how many artists today are dedicated to the recovery (in person or by proxy) of artisanal techniques once linked to a strictly feminine and domestic sphere, such as embroidery, weaving and crochet, which are reworked in a conceptual, pictorial, commemorative, documentary or narrative way. Fabrics can have an affective and emotional value, when they preserve the traces of those who owned or worked them, or become artistic material even without their utilitarian nature being modified by specific interventions. In some cases their use is motivated exclusively by aesthetic intentions linked to chromatic or material values, in other cases it is connected to the investigation of specific social themes, in particular anti-colonialist or gender topics.
View of the exhibition “Exploratory textures: a journey through the tapestry”, photo Cristina Patuelli, courtesy Fondazione Dino Zoli, Forlì
Systematic studies on this peculiar niche of contemporary artistic production are very rare, but it is well known that the textile medium, once seen as a decorative art, has long been an expressive form in its own right, capable of instilling new ideas for research in the poetics of artists normally dedicated to other techniques or of exclusively characterizing the expressive style of some. The exhibition “TRAME ESPLORATIVE: un viaggio attraverso l’arazzo” (Exploratory textures: a journey through the tapestry ) curated by Nadia Stefanel at the Dino Zoli Foundation in Forlì, which offers the public a broad and documented review of the art of tapestry in Italy from the 1950s to the present day, constitutes a precious piece of a desirable reconnaissance on the subject yet to come. The event is part of a broader patronage program by the Dino Zoli Textile company aimed at encouraging, through residencies or commissions, the contamination between industrial production and art, which already has to its credit prestigious collaborations with artists under its belt, the most recent of which are with Elena Bellantoni and Silvia Camporesi.
View of the exhibition “Exploratory textures: a journey through the tapestry”, photo Cristina Patuelli, courtesy Fondazione Dino Zoli, Forlì
The exhibition itinerary of the current show is divided into two thematic sections, one historical and one dedicated to more recent experiments. The first traces the close dialogue between artists and artisans established between the 1950s and 1990s by four excellent Italian manufacturers (Esino Lario in Lecco, Elio Palmisano in Saronno, Arazzeria Pennese in Penne and Studio Pratha in Sarule) and a prestigious French factory (Ateliers Pinton in Felletin) through a targeted selection of tapestries designed by some of the most important masters from the second half of the twentieth century. The succession of works on display, all unique pieces, follows the double thread of mapping the different visual declinations of abstract language and their translation from the pure dimensionality of painting to the material three-dimensionality of tapestry, in which the stylistic characterizations of the various authors intersect inextricably with those derived from the production processes developed by each manufacturer. From this symbiotic interconnection, the duplicity of the status of the tapestry clearly emerges, for which, as for all works resulting from the artists’ trespassing into fields in which they benefit from the creative expertise of other professionals, one could speak of shared authorship, both the stylistic imprint of the artist and the “trademark” of a certain workshop being equally decisive for their recognisability. The translation of the artists’ visions into another medium also involves a process of interpretation and synthesis of their languages that offers the observer an interesting opportunity to delve deeper into their decisive characteristics.
Alexander Calder, “Mes oignons”, 1971, 217 x 153 cm, signed Calder, Ateliers Pinton (Francia). Courtesy Galleria Antonio Verolino, Modena
Among the works exhibited in this section, we highlight “La scala d’oro” (1975) by Afro, an evocative mental landscape inspired by the grand staircase leading to the Doge’s apartment at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, where the black areas so characteristic of his production (here shaped to allude to the profile of a gondola) stand out against a bright and vibrant golden background, surprising for having been made with a material, such as thread, that we are used to imagining as compact and opaque. Another noteworthy piece is the tapestry entitled “Focus” (1976) by Luigi Veronesi where the textile medium proves particularly versatile in suggesting, thanks also to its texture, how the transparent overlapping of geometric figures implies an intersection of planes with an intrinsic (albeit infinitesimal) thickness, evocative of the conceptual spatiality investigated by the artist. Beautiful, to conclude this brief and entirely subjective examination of the historicized section, the large hand-woven wool tapestry by Alexander Calder entitled “Mes oignons” (1971). Here the floating two-dimensional forms that reproduce the patterns of plant growth intersect with each other, revealing the sculptural quality of the graphic layout, particularly evident in the passage of the blue shoot through a tortuous black stream, a recurring motif in other paintings by the artist.
Loredana Longo, “Carpet #62 – None of us is perfect”, 2023, carpet burns, 184 × 265 cm. Courtesy Galleria FPAC Francesco Pantaleone, Palermo
In the second section, focused on strict contemporaneity, the philological approach gives way to a freer sampling of tapestries and carpets in contemporary artistic production, in most cases no longer animated by the intent to transpose a graphic or pictorial image into the textile medium with the greatest possible fidelity, but the result of an integrated design that starts from the material and evocative potential of the chosen fabric. The artworks by Armida Gandini and Loredana Longo are emblematic in this perspective, both based on the reworking of used oriental carpets and inspired by a conception of the carpet as a mobile good in its easy transportability. In the first case the artist evokes the unstable and constantly changing reality of migrants by cutting out from the carpets wandering silhouettes taken from the great classics of art history, in the second the carpet, branded with lapidary statements, is a vehicle for the diffusion of critical messages towards capitalist and globalized society. The series of small tapestries entitled “Reverie” by Elena El Asmar, in which dotted patterns bordering on abstraction suggest an idea of a diaphragm between the real world and the dream state, triggered by the observation of the reflections of light on the glass of her window overlooking the Tuscan countryside, seems to challenge the natural opacity of the fabric. Finally, the installation of tapestries made in Flanders by Maurizio Donzelli is also very suggestive, which enlivens the space with a plastic play of projections and recesses in which decorative elements taken from medieval and Renaissance painting, enlarged and reproduced by weaving, become imaginative portals of access to a fairy-tale and multidimensional world.
Info:
Exploratory textures: a journey through the tapestry at the Dino Zoli Foundation in Forlì
Artists: Afro, Stefano Arienti, Niki Berlinguer, Eros Bonamini, Alexander Calder, Sonia Delaunay, Maurizio Donzelli, Piero Dorazio, Gianni Dova, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Elena El Asmar, Omar Galliani, Armida Gandini, Fabio Iemmi, Riccardo Licata, Loredana Longo, Antonio Marras, Francesca Müller, Mauro Reggiani, Remo Salvadori, Gino Severini, Sissi, Guerrino Tramonti, Luigi Veronesi.
Lenders: Archivio Omar Galliani, Reggio Emilia; Atelier Antonio Marras, Milano; Alessandro Casciaro Art Gallery, Bolzano; Galleria Moshe Tabibnia, Milano; Galleria Antonio Verolino, Modena; Museo Guerrino Tramonti, Faenza; Studio Eros Bonamini, Verona; Studio Pratha, Sarule; Studio Francesca Müller, Amsterdam; Galleria FPAC Francesco Pantaleone, Palermo.
curated by Nadia Stefanel
26/10/2024 – 16/03/2025
Viale Bologna 288, Forlì (FC)
www.fondazionedinozoli.com
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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