UNSW Galleries is pleased to announce a major exhibition of work by twelve Australian artists who reimagine textiles and fibre art.
‘Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles & Fibre Practices’ runs from 29 April to 17 July 2022 and is co-curated by Karen Hall and Catherine Woolley. The exhibition includes new commissions and recent works by Akira Akira, Sarah Contos, Lucia Dohrmann, Mikala Dwyer, Janet Fieldhouse, Teelah George, Paul Knight, Anne-Marie May, John Nixon, Kate Scardifield, Jacqueline Stojanović, and Katie West.
‘Pliable Planes’ takes its title from a 1957 essay by celebrated Bauhaus artist Anni Albers who sought to rethink weaving through the lens of architecture, interpreting textiles as fundamentally structural and endlessly mutable. The exhibition presents works that experiment with materiality, spatial fluidity, and process and features painting, assemblage, sculpture, video, sound, and installation. It reflects artists’ use of textiles and fibre to chart social and cultural change, respond to historical modes of production and representation, and test formal properties through weaving, embroidery, knitting, and sewing.
Exhibition co-curator Karen Hall explains: “The exhibition unites the work of practitioners who disrupt our understanding of how textiles and fibre are defined and used in contemporary practice. ‘Pliable Planes’ highlights dynamic approaches to making from artists who weave with porcelain, unravel paintings on canvas, and create sonic representations of needlepoint.”
UNSW Galleries has commissioned seven artists to create new works for the project. They include Sarah Contos, who incorporates knitted and crocheted aluminium forms to create an expression of ‘heavy femininity’. Kate Scardifield presents a new ‘textile wind instrument’ that explores the interplay between body and material, the natural elements and landscape.
The exhibition also features important new collaborative works by John Nixon and Jacqueline Stojanović. Nixon completed half of the collaboration before his death in 2020, and Stojanović finished her part in 2021. The works combine their respective practices — constructed painting and weaving — evidencing the enduring exploration of abstraction across different generations.
“We are excited to support ambitious new works for the project that embody and expand upon histories and practices. Whether interrogating modernist weaving theories or exploring connections to First Nations fibre practices, exhibiting artists navigate the continued social and cultural significance of textiles through a range of experimental and unexpected approaches,” says co-curator Catherine Woolley.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication designed by Small Tasks featuring new scholarship by writers and curators Sophia Cai, Katie Dyer, and Vikki McInnes.
‘Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles & Fibre Practices’ is presented with the support of the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia touring initiative. The exhibition will tour nationally throughout 2023–25 to the following venues: New South Wales (Grafton Regional Gallery), Victoria (Ballarat Art Gallery and Heide Museum of Modern Art), Queensland (Artspace Mackay), and Western Australia (Fremantle Arts Centre).
EXHIBITION DETAILS
Where: UNSW Galleries
Address: Cnr of Oxford Street and Greens Road, Paddington, Sydney
Tel: 02 8936 0888
When: 29 April – 17 July 2022
Hours: Wednesday – Friday (10am – 5pm) and Saturday – Sunday (12pm – 5pm)
Closed on public holidays
Tickets: Free
Website: www.unsw.to/galleries
Symposium: 11am – 4pm Saturday 30 April 2022
Featured image : Janet Fieldhouse, Memory Series 2 2014. Kereplex porcelain. Image courtesy: the artist, and Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne