Textile Biennial in the Netherlands
Vliegen (Flies) detail, Sakia E M van Dijk
The Rijswijk Museum in the Netherlands is holding its first Textile Biennial from 27 June – 13 September
The museum already holds a paper biennial and so seems to have decided that a textiles version nicely fills the gaps in this two-year cycle. For the first year they will be showing work by 16 artists who have come to textiles in mid-career. Originally working as painters, sculptors or graphic artists, these exhibitors took up textiles as a means of better expressing themselves. Although they don’t necessarily have the high level of technical skill that dyed-in-the-wool textile artists have, many of them have a particularly original approach as they come at the field from an unexpected, fine-art angle.
A good range of techniques is represented. Monika Auch, Joe Koen Loman and Jeroen Vinken all use looms, and Auch manages the impressive feat of making three-dimensional sculptural pieces while using a flat loom. Sakia E.M. van Dijk knits, although again her work is fairly sculptural as she makes series of fabric insects which she mounts in display cases – a gentle comment on the armies of dead bugs collected by generations of less PC butterfly hunters. And then there’s embroidery (Hinke Schreuders and Karola Pezarro), crochet (Maria Kratz) and print (Wilma Kuil). It’s varied, it’s unusual and, refreshingly – for British craft audiences anyway – the exhibitors are all completely unknown. Well worth a visit if you’re in the Netherlands this summer.
www.museumryswyk.nl
