Classics Reimagined Exhibition
Classics Reimagined Images: Dandelion Grid Quilt, 2021, Lilah Ward ; The Sensuous Magnolia & the Great Sale Lake, 2024, Lorraine Glessner; Embroidered Scribbles on a Page from My Notebook, 2009, Ayelet Lindenstrauss Larsen
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be asked to juror Classics Reimagined, an exhibition for Surface Design Association. Coming up with a theme gave me the opportunity to explore one of the reasons why textile art interests me so much – namely what keeps such traditional skills current. It was wonderful to look through the entries and choose thirty which I felt represented the many different genres within fiber art. The entire exhibition can be seen on the SDA website or Textile Curator’s social media. In the meantime here is the ethos behind it.
Classics Reimagined explores the endurance of fiber art over centuries and the ways that contemporary artists reimagine, reinvent, or update “classics” for our contemporary moment. It asks: What makes something classic? Is it a pattern, colorway, technique, form, concept, or another aspect of artistic practice?
Thirty artists bring their unique perspectives to this exhibition, with themes including the environment, democracy, and humanity. Some artists reimagine traditional forms like quilts and samplers, while others deconstruct techniques or stitch new life and meaning into found materials. Pattern, fragility, dynamic interplays of positive and negative space, abstraction, and figuration are just some of the elements reimagining classic forms.
Classics Reimagined offers insight into how contemporary artists use age-old techniques and materials mixed with new, creative concepts to look to the past, present, and future of fiber art.
Thank you to all of the artists who applied, to Surface Design Association https://www.surfacedesign.org for inviting me to curate and to Rebecca McNamara who is the Associate Curator at Tang Teaching Museum and Skidmore College. https://tang.skidmore.edu/ for her expertise and insight.