Eleni Kyriacou

Feb 2, 2023

THE 59TH VENICE ART BIENNALE | PROMINENCE OF TEXTILES

In the past I have written about how it has always confused me that ‘the applied arts’ have historically, normally been regarded as a lesser art form to ‘fine art’ which has historically referred to painting and sculpture. This Biennale was the first time that I have really seen art in the medium of textiles elevated to the exact same level as art of all other media. I was really delighted to see this. The textiles included were current and historic and all the examples I remember seeing were by female artists. Textiles are of course historically a female dominated medium and their historic disregard as a ‘decorative’ and ‘superficial’ art form was in my opinion to a great degree because of sexism and the historic need to degrade women’s artistic capabilities so as to maintain dominance and control over them.

Britta Marakatt-Labba, Global upwarms, 2021

The textile art in this Biennale was varied and rich with conceptual thought and messaging. The first artists working with textiles whose work I saw displayed in the Arsenale was Britta Marakatt Labba. Her work immediately transported me to the northern land where she is from, which of course immediately made me think about the climate crisis. Her work is full of references to the climate crisis and is stunningly and sensitively rendered though her use of collaged and layered fabrics, her stitchwork techniques and so on.

Britta Marakatt-Labba, Between the trees, 1986

Myrlande Constant, Sirenes, 2020

GUEDE (baron), 2020

Rasanbleman Soupe Tout Eskot Yo, 2019

In the same space were historic textiles by Violeta Parra. Her textiles were indeed so strong and timeless I could have easily believed they were contemporary, and yet they were created in the early 60s. In fact, her work was my favourite of these 3 artists. Her use of the medium is so expressive and bold. Her forms and lines seem as though they have been created through a sweeping gesture and not painstaking individual stitches.

Her compositions are so compelling and full of so much movement whilst having been executed so diligently that it leaves me truly in awe. It is not surprising that she was also a musician as her work is truly rhythmic. I also found her use of the background fabric very clever where at time she uses the background to define voids in her themes and at other times to describe ‘solids’.

One example is in the work depicting a marine scene where the faces that appear on one vessel are made of stitches while on the other, they are voids, this inversion suggests a possible life/death contrast as one appears to be in calmer waters and the other seemingly more supernatural entity on turbulent ones. Her work also delves a lot into our relationship with the environment.