Lost in Lace: full details announced
Lace Meander by Piper Shepard, 2006, Photo: Dan Myers
See lace in a new light as 20 leading international artists present radical, theatrical and spectacular new work which explores textiles and space at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery from 29th Oct 2011 - 19th Feb 2012.
Lost in Lace will see 20 leading international artists take over the Gas Hall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) this Winter. Running 29th October 2011 to 19th February 2012, this exhibition will explore the relationship between textiles – specifically lace – and space through a series of dramatic and ambitious new site-sensitive installations.
Produced in partnership by BMAG and the Crafts Council, the exhibition brings together both leading and emergent artists and makers – many of whom will be exhibiting in the UK for the first time. From the intricate to the monumental, these contemporary works will challenge the viewer’s existing notions of space, encouraging them to renegotiate the mysterious new environments and blurred and shifted boundaries that emerge.
The work exhibited spans a diverse range of materials, practices and inspirations. Atelier Manferdini will present a stunning inverted crystal cathedral hanging from ceiling to floor. Other large-scale works include acclaimed Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s web of interlacing black thread, eerily entrapping a white staircase. French artist Annie Bascoul’s dual installation evokes a more sensual environment: an intricate wire screen casts beautiful shadows across the floor as a delicate bed of feathers floats above the text of an erotic poem.
Leading British maker Michael Brennand Wood will explore his anti-militaristic sentiments in his series of red and black aluminium roundels, connected in a constellation-like pattern. Lise Bjørne Linnert’s Fences also raises political issues, as each photograph depicts an area of fence she has embroidered to highlight a hole. Often undertaken in conflict zones, her work investigates the notion of these contentious boundaries.
The exhibition will also see a number of artists that employ detailed scientific process and knowledge in their work. Tamar Frank’s grid of phosphorescent threads will glow to reveal complex 3D parabolic curves, whilst the lace-like
pattern stencilled onto Alessia Giardino’s photo-catalytic concrete panels is developed through their exposure to airborne pollution, and Kathleen Rogers uses new microscopy equipment to expose thread structures.
These, alongside many other new and exciting works, will provide an immersive and multi-sensory experience for the viewer, and reveal the radical new approaches to textile and space made by artists and makers around the world. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue containing background information and interviews with the participants, edited by the exhibition curator Lesley Millar MBE. Parallel to Lost in Lace, BMAG presents an exhibition focussing on the research, reinterpretation and redisplay of their historic lace collection.
Lost in Lace is the first exhibition programmed through the Crafts Council’s biennial Fifty:Fifty scheme, through which the Crafts Council co-funds and co produces an exhibition with a partner organisation chosen by open selection. Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director, Crafts Council said of the partnership:
“We are thrilled to be working with BMAG on this exciting inaugural Fifty:Fifty exhibition. Lost in Lace will encourage people to think about the fabric of the spaces we live in through extraordinary textile pieces created by prolific international artists. We believe this will draw new audiences to see the sort of contemporary craft that they may have never seen before.”
Rita McLean, Head of Museums & Heritage Services, BMAG added:
“BMAG is proud to be the first partner in the Crafts Council’s new Fiffy:Fifty programme. We hope that Lost In Lace will increase public awareness of contemporary craft, regionally and nationally, through the exciting world-class work it will present.”
The exhibition is curated by Lesley Millar MBE, Professor of Textile Culture at University for the Creative Arts. Millar received a Crafts Council Spark Plug Curator Award in 2009 to develop an ambitious, innovative and high-quality exhibition concept and used the award to develop Lost in Lace. Millar explains:
“In this exhibition I have asked an international group of artists, makers, and designers to move beyond their usual margins of practice. My challenge was: how to shape the perception of the potentially radical relationship between
the structure of lace networks and architectural space? Their responses have been to question the ways in which we move through space and the nature of boundaries and thresholds. With no defined narrative path through the exhibition, visitors will be encouraged to confront the same questions, as they are invited to move freely within, through and around the works.”
For more press information please contact Idea Generation. Email Tani Burns or Hannah Ainsworth or ring +44(0)20 7749 6850
Exhibition Details
29th October 2011 – 19th February 2012
Gas Hall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square
Birmingham
B3 3DH
Tel:+44 (0)121 303 1966
FREE ADMISSION
Opening Hours:
Mon – Thurs: 10am – 5pm
Fri: 10.30am – 5pm
Sat: 10am – 5pm
Sun: 12.30pm – 5pm
Artists & Works
Annie Bascoul (France)
Bascoul will display two existing pieces that work together as an installation. Viewers enter the installation through a doorway in Moucharabieh, a large-scale cotton screen created using the Alençon lace technique. As they enter they will see Jardin de lit, lit de jardin, a cotton and feather bed that floats above a brass wire version of the erotic 16th century poem Le May.
Michael Brennand Wood (UK)
Brennand Wood will create a new work entitled Lace – The Final Frontier. The work will consist of a number of aluminium roundels that incorporate military symbols such as planes, bombs and artillery. These roundels, coloured red and black, will be fixed on to the wall and connected using threads to create a constellation-like lace pattern.
Tamar Frank (Netherlands)
Frank will create an enclosed space within the exhibition. A regular lighting of the initially dark space will result in the installed grid of phosphorescent threads glowing for a few minutes afterwards to reveal a number of 3D parabolic shapes.
Alessia Giardino (Italy / UK)
Giardino will present a series of TX Active® photo catalytic concrete panels exposed to the air in Milan and Birmingham – showing an emergent lace-like pattern depending on levels of pollution.
Diana Harrison (UK)
Harrison will present a six metre-length of cloth with each metre representing a decade of her life. Harrison will burn, print and stitch the cloth to expose the underlying structure and display it slightly proud of the gallery wall to cast a pattern of shadows.
Katharina Hinsberg (Germany)
Hinsberg will create a series of large abstract drawings which will be transferred to the gallery wall via a technique that mirrors the ‘pricking’ of lace. The lines of the drawing will be drilled through on to the gallery wall using drill bits of varying sizes.
Ana Holck (Brazil)
Holck will create a sculptural archway constructed from a number of inter-connecting red acrylic hexagonal shapes. These shapes reference the often-overlooked patterns and decoration that surrounds us – in Holck’s case the pavement blocking in her native Brazil.
Iraida Icaza (Panama / UK)
Icaza will display four prints that reference the ‘in-between’ spaces. Two new prints created for the exhibition will show reversed out imagery of natural forms, for example coral, printed on Japanese washi paper.
Naomi Kobayashi (Japan)
Kobayashi will show an existing piece – 12 floor-to-ceiling columns that have been created by constructing and stitching together Japanese washi papers.
Lise Bjørne Linnert (Norway)
Linnert will be showing 62 photographic prints from her international Fences series. Each photograph is of an area of fence she has embroidered with red silk to highlight a hole. Often undertaken in conflict zones and private spaces, her work explores the notion of boundaries and how we interact with them.
Atelier Manferdini (USA / Italy)
Atelier Manferdini will create an inverted crystal cathedral using one tonne of black crystal. Multiple strings of crystals will descend from a 7×7 metre space on the ceiling to create a structure that will hang down to the floor, referencing the Italian expression ‘punto in aria’ – stitching the air.
Outi Martikainen (Finland)
Martikainen will create three textile panels made from beige steelreinforced polypropylene rope and inspired by the lace-like qualities of laddered stockings. These pieces will be installed on the facade of the art gallery.
Ai Matsumoto (Japan)
Matsumoto will install a series of panels of silicone that each has trapped within it the imprint of a handkerchief that Matsumoto has hand-embroidered – making public very private elements of Japanese culture.
Liz Nilsson (Republic of Ireland)
Nilsson will create three large monochrome laser cut, hand-stitched, screen-printed panels that will hang in the exhibition space allowing visitors to walk in between them and the shadows they cast.
Suzumi Noda (Japan)
Noda takes discarded Jacquard loom punch cards and gives them a new precious value by applying the laborious and costly urushi laquer technique to them. These punch cards are then stitched together, creating a large hanging screen.
Kathleen Rogers (UK)
Rogers has taken a thread from a piece of Chantilly lace in the BMAG Collection and, using new microscopy equipment, has taken images of the internal structure of the thread that will be projected large-scale on to the gallery wall.
Piper Shepard (USA)
Shepard has taken a piece of historic point de gaze lace from the BMAG Collection as the starting point for a black hand-cut vellum piece that will
be installed between two internal gallery columns and opposite Bascoul’s large white Moucharabieh screen.
Chiharu Shiota (Japan)
Shiota will construct a 9×9 metre web of interlacing black thread that will feature a number of embedded white steps ‘trapped’ within the calligraphic network. Visitors will be able to walk through the piece and explore its spaces.
Reiko Sudo (Japan)
Sudo will create an installation of laser cut textile using origami folding and mirrors to create an impression of infinity using Japanese folkloric tales as its inspiration.
Nils Völker (Germany)
Volker is creating a breathing wall using white plastic bags. Electric fans behind the bags created a series of patterns and rhythms as the bin liners are inflated and deflated over a repeated time loop.
Notes to Editors
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BMAG) is the largest regional local authority Museum Service. The central Museum and Art Gallery was founded in 1885 and its collections have been designated as Outstanding by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. In 2010 the Service attracted over a million visitors to its collections and temporary exhibitions programme. It is committed to displaying contemporary applied art and this includes one of the UK’s leading collections of contemporary metalwork. Lost in Lace represents BMAG’s ambitions to deliver a nationally significant exhibitions programme. This exhibition has been specifically supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
University for the Creative Arts
The University for the Creative Arts has campuses in Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester and is one of Europe’s largest specialist universities of art, design, architecture, media and communication. With around 7, 000 students studying on a wide range of well-established courses, potential graphic designers’ work alongside budding journalists and pioneering fashion designers in a highly creative environment.
The Fifty: Fifty Programme
Lost in Lace is the first exhibition to be delivered via the Crafts Council partnership scheme: The Fifty: Fifty Programme. This is a biennial Crafts Council initiative that seeks to develop projects that are match funded by the Crafts Council and a partner. The Programme is based on the sharing of resources. The Crafts Council will work with the selected partner to co-develop and deliver a partnership exhibition. Funds, ideas and resources will be joined and shared equally on a 50:50 basis.
Lesley Millar
Lost in Lace is curated by Lesley Millar, who is the recipient of a Crafts Council Spark Plug Curator Award. This Award is for the research and development of the exhibition idea. Lesley Millar has been a practising weaver with her own studio since 1975. She has work in the permanent collections of both the Crafts Council and Arts Council England and is listed on the Crafts Council Index of Selected Makers. She has exhibited throughout the UK, in Europe, the USA and Japan.
She has worked as an exhibition organiser and curator specialising in contemporary textiles since 1987 and has been project director for major international touring exhibitions featuring textile artists from the UK and Japan. She writes regularly about textile practice in Britain and Japan, is co-editor of the on-line textile journal DUCK and advisor for the
Journal of Craft Research. In 2006-07 she undertook an AHRC funded project investigating approaches to contemporary textiles through collaborative research between Museums, HEI’s and Practitioners.
In 2007 she was appointed Professor of Textile Culture at the University for the Creative Arts, 2008 she received the Japan Society Award for significant contribution to Anglo-Japanese relationships, and in 2011 was awarded an MBE for her contribution to Higher Education.
