|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The word “textiles” may bring to mind blankets, clothing and anything made by weaving thread. A visit to the current exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center, “Cut from the Same Cloth: Textile and Technology” will quickly serve to expand your viewpoint. The 18 artists in this expansive group show challenge the notion that art and technology are mutually exclusive, while celebrating the historic roots of a very basic handcraft.
Palo Alto Art Center Director Karen Kienzle said that textile artwork has long been on the radar of the center’s staff but plans for an exhibition were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “During the pandemic, we learned about Christine Duval’s exhibition, which combined textile with the novel element of technology. We were excited about how the combination of these two seemingly disparate, but actually quite related media, would resonate with our audiences,” Kienzle said.
Duval, who is an independent curator, organized a version of the exhibition that was displayed previously at the French consulate in San Francisco and then at Currents 826 gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For this iteration of the show in Palo Alto, she invited six new artists whose work she had seen while on museum and studio visits. Duval said that she had two main criteria when selecting artists, those who “brought a fresh perspective or unique twist to the central concept of the show, and artists who are California-based or have a strong connection to California.”
Upon entering the gallery, the visitor is met with a familiar and thoroughly Silicon Valley icon: the circuit board. Using Sunbrella cordage and gold thread, artist Windy Chien has created a knotwork and macrame wall-hanging that pretty much sums up the intent of the show: to marry handcrafted techniques with the brave new world of technology and, in the process, create aesthetically pleasing and conceptually challenging art.
Take the time to watch the short, informative video that describes the importance of the Jacquard loom, invented in 1801, and how it revolutionized the manufacture of textiles. The once laborious process of handweaving was made easier and faster thanks to punched cards that stored the complex patterns used to produce fabrics such as brocades and damasks. A display case in the exhibit features an example of a punch card. A few centuries later, this system of encoded information would become the inspiration for IBM’s first computer and the birth of an industry that is at the core of life here in the Bay Area.
Continuing into the gallery, it is obvious that Duval has gathered artworks that show both the hand of the weaver and art that has relied upon more high-tech methodologies. “The Visionary” by Guillermo Bert fits the bill for a traditional approach to the medium; it is a wall hanging, composed of naturally dyed wool and supported by wooden dowels. The strong center design in black and white seems to have a Native American influence, but look again and notice that Bert has actually created a QR code, a ubiquitous symbol of our modern lifestyle.
Lia Cook employs the Jacquard loom but updates it with a twist: digital weaving technologies that enable her to create realistic imagery, as in the portrait entitled “Intense & Questioning.” Cook recorded viewers’ responses to the work and used data visualization to weave representations of their reactions back into the work itself. This cotton rayon weaving catches your attention, first with colorful one-word proclamations like “scared,” “difficult,” “angry” and “confused.” But step back and you will see an image of a child’s face. It’s haunting and thought-provoking.
Many of the artists have taken the idea of weaving and translated it using more contemporary materials. Tara de la Garza uses LEDs wrapped in recycled bags to create a warp and weft pattern. According to the label, this tartan pattern reflects the artistic legacy of minimalist artists like Donald Judd, while making a statement about “society, wealth and waste.”
Clive McCarthy has dispensed with the loom entirely, using his own code and software to create a digital weaving that appears, slowly and row by row, before your eyes. Daniel Canogar‘s “Shred” also uses software and a screen to produce an in-your-face image that explodes with color and movement. The label explains that it is a generative animation that uses NFTs as raw material. As a comment on the “dematerialization of art” the artist says that the piece “invokes the incessant and indefatigable fever of digital collecting.”
Returning to more traditional methods, Susie Taylor‘s lovely hand-dyed weavings are colorful tributes to geometric abstraction with the added twist of being so three-dimensional you want to touch them. According to the label, the artist sketches the designs on grid paper which are then translated into digital designs. Using a floor loom, the process is slow and laborious. The piece “Jubilee” is small in size but a masterful blend of color, line, form and texture.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from creating with thread is the work of Aiko Tezuka. Her three pieces in the show are fabric deconstructions that question “what is behind the surface of an object?” She has taken several elaborately designed pieces of material and, thread by thread, pulled them apart to create a new object. The end result, as in “Seep Out-Bird,” is elegant, striking and, if nothing else, impressive for revealing the quantity of thread needed to make a design on fabric — and the artist’s patience in what must have been a time-consuming, meticulous process.
The Glass Gallery is devoted to the work of Ahree Lee, whose work blends new media, video and textiles while highlighting the important role of women in the history of computer development. “Binary System” is inspired by the fact that both weaving and coding are based on binary systems: warp and weft in weaving and zeros and ones in coding. But she also points out that “the division of computer labor also fell along a gender binary. Men assumed the role of building hardware while the task of software programming, perceived as less important, was relegated to women.”
Duval acknowledges that while these contemporary artists are challenging the traditional notions of textile craftsmanship, some aspects of the medium remain the same. “While some artists in the show may employ programming and digital techniques, these methods are simply extensions of the creative process — akin to using a loom or a needle in traditional craft. The emphasis remains on intentionality, materiality and innovation, whether the work is created by hand or through coding,” she said. She also noted that “weavers often refer to themselves as coders.”
Adjacent to the Glass Gallery is a large- scale tapestry titled “The Road” by the collaborative team of Aziz + Cucher. Tapestries have historically been a way to present big, dramatic recreations of monumental battles or royal ceremonies in a narrative manner. This piece, a Jacquard tapestry created using a digital weaving file, will have you making a close examination as to who the figures are and what they are doing. Are they escaping oppression, searching for food? And what about the figures in hazmat suits? It’s a present-day mystery, made in a Renaissance-era artform.
While the gallery visitor should not expect to see woven blankets, embroidered samplers or your granny’s favorite quilt pattern, there is much here to both delight the eye and stimulate thought. Duval hopes that viewers “gain a deeper understanding of the rich connections between craft and technology, seeing how textiles have shaped not only artistic expression but also technological innovation throughout history.”
“Cut from the Same Cloth: Textile and Technology” is on view through April 6 at the Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto. Admission is free. There are several events organized around the exhibition, including an apparel swap party on Feb. 16; a panel discussion on March 22 and workshop with artist Ahree Lee on March 23. For more information, visit cityofpaloalto.org/textile.
Atherton police arrest two men for allegedly trying to meet up with a 14-year-old for sexApril 3, 2026 10:38 am
Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am