Knitted Worlds in the Netherlands
Reichstag Berlin, Annette Streyl, wool, metal knitted, (Photo Ulrich Gehner, image courtesy LEVY Galerie, Hamburg)
The Audax Textile Museum in the Netherlands takes its turn to present the contemporary face of knitting with a new exhibition, Knitted Worlds, running from 14 March – 14 June.
Highlights include Annette Streyel’s marvellously detailed model of Berlin’s Reichstag, which by using the ‘feminine’ technique of knitting comments on the ‘masculine’ world of politics. Désirée de Baar looks at similar issues with her startlingly coloured knitted kitchen, but in her case de Baar has wittily used a technique traditionally associated with women to re-create their traditionally perceived place.
Fashion is represented by Nanna van Blaaderen and Daniera ter Haar, both makers who show a clear interest in knitting as a 3D sculptural technique as much as a technique for producing flat pieces of material to drape over the body. Van Blaaderen’s interest in materials and texture has led her to make hand-knitted dresses out of horse hair and metal yarn as well as wool, while Ter Haar’s dramatically padded, organic shaped pieces are closer to wearable sculpture than clothes.
www.textielmuseum.nl
