Stephen Pitkin
Published:
Long
viewed as the domain of grandmothers, needlework has undergone an image
makeover in the last decade. Snowboarders, the old torchbearers of alt.culture, have embraced crocheting, making beanies to
wear on the slopes; coffeehouses and subways are filled with fashion-conscious
types busily knitting or doing needlepoint. And contemporary artists like
Andrea Zittel, Lisa Anne Auerbach,
Orly Genger and Jim Drain
and the Forcefield collective have given crafts a
coolly conceptual edge.
Michael Falco for the New York Times
Foley Gallery
Douglas Atfield
Time then for an exhibition
celebrating the unfrumpiness of craft, and, sigh,
what better institution than one that recently went through its own makeover,
changing its name from the
The
sorry news is that, despite its title, “Radical Lace & Subversive
Knitting,” with around 40 works by 27 artists, is not a benchmark for
introducing such crafts’ coolness or radicalism to a vast art audience. Rather
than exploring transgressive takes on knitting, the
exhibition, organized by David Revere McFadden, the museum’s chief curator,
devotes most of its space to art that mimics the look or logic of knitting and
lace and translates it into different materials.
In
an essay in the show’s catalog, Mr. McFadden does invoke interactive
performances held in abandoned warehouses and the London Underground and people
who knit sweaters for “oil-spill-damaged penguins to wear in
But
in choosing the work for the show, he cites somewhat dated textile and
crafts-based artists like Sophie Taeuber, Sonia Delaunay, Judy Chicago and Magdalena Abakanowicz
as his models.
Much
of the art on view is in the large-scale, virtuosic craft vein. Henk Wolvers’s flat sculptures
created with porcelain slip, a form of liquid clay, borrow the tracery if not
the actual patterns of lace. Piper Shepard’s “Lace Meander” is a series of
hanging muslin scrolls into which the artist cut lace patterns with an X-Acto knife. Bennett Battaile’s
delicate sculpture of thin glass rods and Barbara Zucker’s
rubber sculptures both invoke lace-tracery in heavier materials.
Some
of the artists address “issues of politics, gender and ethics,” as a wall text
puts it, in a general way. Janet Echelman’s giant,
hand-knotted nylon net hanging from the ceiling in the museum’s entryway
recreates the look of a nuclear mushroom cloud. Freddie Robins’s
sinister-looking gray-knit bodysuit, with the words “Craft Kills” emblazoned
across the chest, alludes to the airline ban on knitting needles in the
post-9/11 era.
The
works most in keeping with the show’s politically charged title are more
interactive and collective, or more related to performance. For example, Cat Mazza’s collectively crocheted “Nike Blanket Petition,” a
campaign against sweatshop practices represented here in a series of
photographs, will be sent to Nike’s corporate headquarters.
A
video of Dave Cole’s “Knitting Machine” project shows two John Deere excavators
wielding telephone poles tapered to look like knitting needles — and missiles —
to knit a giant American flag in the courtyard of the Massachusetts Museum of
Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.
Sabrina
Gschwandtner, an artist and founder of KnitKnit magazine, has set up a “Wartime Knitting Circle”
surrounded by panels made of industrially knitted photos of Vietnam War
protesters knitting, British women knitting woolen covers for World War II hand
grenades, soldiers knitting during World War I.
She
invites people to join her in knitting “blankets for recovery” for people in
Needlework
indeed has a radical past. William Morris, a mainstay of the Royal School of
Needlework and the Arts and Crafts movement in
So
many more artists might have been included whose work explores the social
aspects of knitting and lace or who more radically recast these forms: Simon Perotin, of the punk-doily creations; the artisans in the
Church of Craft; Ms. Zittel; Ms. Auerbach;,
Mr. Drain; and so on.
Given
the show’s title, some visitors will arrive wanting to know how needlework,
which runs counter to our technology- and information-saturated age, has become
such a cultural juggernaut, and how it might serve to break down the barriers
between artist and amateur, art and craft. A few works here may well satisfy
that desire. Most will not.
“Radical
Lace & Subversive Knitting” runs through June 17 at the Museum of Arts
& Design,
A
series of public programs related to the exhibition is planned, including
lectures, panel discussions, performance pieces and workshops in knitting,
lace-making, crocheting, fabric-making, fabric-printing and digital design.
Some events are free with museum admission; others require an additional fee
that includes admission.
Beginning
tomorrow and running every Sunday from