Medieval marvels and psychedelic sixties

Recently my studies have kept me busy, but I have still managed to visit a few exhibitions.  I thought I would try and catch up and post some information about three that have not much longer to run. The first is the one with the most textiles and that is the one I shall start with.

Opus Anglicanum looks at a type of embroidery that dates to the medieval period.  Such was the expertise in England that all over Europe those who wanted the best came here for quality workmanship.  Sadly the re-using threads and jewels, as well as the dissolution of the monasteries meant that very few survived, and many that do are the ones created for elsewhere.  Because of their fragility it is unlikely some of this work will ever by seen in England again and it really needs to be seen slowly and up close.  

This is not a huge exhibition but the work is absolutely exquisite.  My friend and I spent quite some time trying to understand some of the stories they portrayed and I realised that my art history course had not gone to waste!  Quite a lot of the works include the life of the Virgin - not just the story of Mary but that of her mother Anne as well.  The Tree of Jesse also features quite regularly.  The very last piece includes the pall of the Fishmongers Guild - the mermaid is looking at her reflection in the mirror and both are worked in Opus Anglicanum.

The Butler Bowden cope shown above is one of the items on display (image courtesy of Wiki Commons from the V&A).  The Syon Cope is another.  However one of the most beautiful sets of fragments comes from Iceland.  

Definitely worth seeing if you have any interest in embroidery, this exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum continues until 5 February 2017 - so not long to go.

After a spot of lunch my friend and I then went on to a completely different exhibition at the same museum - You say you want a revolution?  This looked at a very different and much shorter period of history.  It looked at the politics, culture and in particular the fashions and music of the years 1966 to 1970.  Dresses worn by Twiggy, the Beatles (including their Sgt Pepper suits), Jimmi Hendrix and many others are included in this exhibition.  I even spied a jacket made up from a piece of Warner fabric, with a space ship design - a sample of the same fabric has been on display in the Warner Textile Archive.  

This is a noisy, busy, frenetic exhibition - especially after the calm of Opus Anglicanum.  You are bombarded with images, ideas, and music.  It showed how this period of time wanted to be one of possibilities - almost Utopian.  But there were negatives too, to some of the ideas of the time.  It was really interesting, thought provoking and sometimes quite challenging. 

You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels - 1966-1970 continues until 26 February 2017 also at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The last exhibition I mention has only a very small piece of embroidery included and but it does have an interesting history.  It is part of Bedlam at the Wellcome Collection.  This exhibition looks at history and attitudes regarding mental health asylums and is another thought provoking exhibition.   There is also a whole section on art works made by former asylum inmates.  

The textile pieces included are two sampler pieces stitched by a Mary Frances Heaton admitted to Wakefield Asylum in 1837 where she lived for 36 years.  Her illness was described as a combination of epilepsy and 'delusions' about an affair she had with Lord Seymour, whose children she had taught music.  She stitched complaining about her confinement to none other than Queen Victoria.   I do not know if Queen Victoria ever saw them or what she thought about them, but they are an intriguing piece of social history.  Unfortunately this exhibition finishes on the 15 January, but it is free to visit so if you are in the area you could just visit to see the stitching - personally I found the whole exhibition quite fascinating.

Here's to 2016

New Year is for me always a time to take stock of the year just past.  Every time I visit an exhibition now I make a record of it in a scrapbook - I have been doing it since 2012 and it is surprising how just a little bit of information takes you back in time, remembering things that were on display. Something nice to look through on a cold, dark, rainy winter's evening.

However New Year is also a time for looking forward and planning exhibitions coming up over the year ahead, though I doubt I'll get to them all.  This is a list of textile related exhibitions either currently in progress (and some of which I have seen, but recommend) or coming up in the next 12 months.

Firstly some shows already started, some just about to finish:

Until 4th January 2016 - Fashion Rules at Kensington Palace, London - looking at the glamorous dresses of the Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana; it then reopens on 11 February 2016 as Fashion Rules, Restyled.

Until 9 January 2016 - Losing the Compass at White Cube, Mason's Yard in Bermondsey - includes work by Amish quilters, William Morris but also many fine art, contemporary artists working in textiles.

Until 10 January 2016 - Fabric of India at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  Definitely a "must see" exhibition which I hoped to revisit; but now think time is against me.

Until 13 January 2016 - Olga de Amariai: Alchemist  at the Rook & Raven Gallery on London's Soho area.  Another exhibition I have only just learnt of, with work by an artist described in Embroidery magazine (Jan/Feb 2016) as "the Louise Bourgeois of Columbia" (review by Liz Hoggard".

Until 31 January 2016 - Shoes: Pleasure and Pain also at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  An interesting exhibition but very crowded - in the lower galleries.  Wish I had had time to leave my coat in the cloakroom.

Until 28 February 2016 - Liberty in Fashion at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London.  Still on my "to do" list.

Until 1 March 2016 - The White Show at the Flow Gallery, London includes stitched work by Richard McVetis.  Another "to do" list show.

Until 1 May 2016 - A Stitch in Time: Home Sewing Before 1900, also at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  I have only just learnt about this display which apparently has been available since May 2015.  It is in Gallery 116.

Until 15 May 2016 - Life and Sole: Footwear from the Islamic World - another display I have only just discovered and apparently includes some embroidered shoes.  In Room 34 of the British Museum.

Opening in 2016:

5 January to 19 March 2016 - Centenary Stitches will be exhibiting at the National Archives, Kew. Knitted clothing items made for a film Tell Them About Us, that told the story of two brothers during WWI also gave an insight into the sort of items made on the Home Front to make life in the trenches a little more bearable.

11 February to 22 May 2016 - Vogue 100: A Century of Style, National Portrait Gallery, London.  An exhibition to celebrate 100 years of British Vogue with a display of photographs documenting the story of one of the most influential fashion magazines.

20 February to 29 May 2016 - Social Fabric: African Textiles at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.  Printed fabrics from east and south Africa show how textiles can express the concerns of the people who wear them.

11 March to 17 April 2016 - Art Textiles: Marian Clayden at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London.  Born in 1937, Marian was a skilled dyer and painter of textiles for the fashion industry.  She died in 2015 and this retrospective will showcase work from her incredible career.

16 April 2016 to 5 February 2017 - Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear in Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  A look at the history of undergarments.

15 June to 10 July 2016 - E.A.S.T. will be exhibiting Between the Lines at Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington. Also talk and workshops - more details in due course.

13 October 2016 to 5 February 2017 - The Vulgar at the Barbican, London.  Looking at notions of vulgarity by looking at fashions of the Renaissance, 18th century and current times.

21 November 2016 to 28 March 2017 - Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  A golden age for English embroidery, this exhibition looks at not only the craftsmanship but at the wider world at the time they were created.

I will try and keep a separate page on this blog now of exhibitions with a textile theme.  Hopefully I can update this as and when I learn of new ones.

I'd love to hear from anyone else on exhibitions I should add.

Indian fabric - craftsmanship and splendour

The Fabric of India was an exhibition I visited on the same day as I visited Shoes: Pleasure and Pain (see last week's blog) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Of the two I have to say I enjoyed this one the most - although both were worth a visit.

The Fabric of India looked at Indian textiles from a wide range of viewpoints - craftsmanship, historical, contemporary, status, political and social issues.  It was also the exhibition where I learnt that for the ancient Greeks and Babylonians, the word 'cotton' was synonymous with India.

The entrance includes a huge seventeenth century "summer carpet" flanked with two mannequins dressed in very contemporary versions of Indian fashion.  It was a good introduction to an exhibition that looked at such a historically diverse subject.

In the next section, which was large and spacious, the exhibition concentrated on the craftsmanship behind textile production - growing, weaving, dyeing, printing, embroidery.  I liked the fact that they showed family businesses still producing cloth or textile products - highlighting the craftsmen (and women) as well as the techniques and products themselves.  

There were sections that showed courtly splendour, textiles with sacred attributes, global trade, and contemporary designs.  It was also good to see that they included a section about how Britain exploited the trade, to the point that the Indian textile tradition was severely damaged - a side of textile history that in the past might have been ignored.  

There were some very beautiful pieces and fascinating items on display.  A favourite of mine was the embroidered map shawl, dating from the 19th century.  Even the exhibition graphics, which included stitched words, were worth admiring.

After a visit to the shoe exhibition in the morning this was a big exhibition to take on.  If I get the chance I would love to go back.  Next time I would take my notebook.  

Again no photographs so the images for the blog are from the V&A's permanent collection of South Asian textiles.  The exhibition continues until 10 January 2016.

Shoes - a pleasurable experience but not without some pain

Any textile artist would probably tell you that the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London is one of their favourite museums in the capital because of its permanent collection which includes a vast number of textile pieces, but also because of its focus on textiles for many of its temporary exhibitions.  Perhaps Shoes: Pleasure and Pain is not really a textile exhibition per se, but it certainly included a lot of textile items.

The categories of display in the lower galleries included transformation, status and seduction.  One display focused on shoes supposed to have magical properties to transform the wearer - like a crystal slipper for Cinderella.  The "status" section shoes that were intended to display wealth or the ability to have so little need for walking you could wear shoes that were completely impractical. The "seductive" shoes included sexy heels and fetish wear.  This was certainly a very broad display and anyone interested in shoes from a social, historical or design perspective would find plenty of interest.

Unfortunately this downstairs section of the exhibition was the most crowded area and with people trying to peer at the displays it made the viewing experience not as pleasurable as it could have been.  This was for me the "pain" of the exhibition but certainly not as painful as I imagine some of the shoes might have been. 

In the more airy upper gallery the focus was on the creation of shoes - showing how a shoe is designed and developed. There was also a collection about shoe collectors.  It was interesting to see the range of shoes that people collected and also how some displayed them like art objects and others kept them safely in boxes.  Some collectors wore shoes their collections while others just kept them as objects of beauty.

There were some audio visual displays including filmed interviews with shoe designers talking about inspiration and working practices which wss worth watching. Other imagery around the walls showed shoes being made - step by step.

This was an interesting exhibition and one I would have liked more with a little more space.  There was a warning at the entrance to leave coats in the cloakroom and it would have been wise words to heed.  

Unfortunately no photography allowed in the temporary exhibition, so the shoe image at the top of this blog is from the permanent collection - of which there are several in the costume display.

This exhibition at the V&A continues until 31 January 2016.  If you combine it with the Fabric of India exhibition you may want to save longer for this much bigger exhibition, of which I will say more in my next blog.