Let Textiles Talk
Six tapestries unrevelled
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
13.11.2021 – 01.05.2022

From 13 November, the Let Textiles Talk exhibition shows six colorful tapestries that make you think. Together with the new curator of design, Amanda Pinatih, you will unravel the appeal of these barely seen carpets.

In 1951, the Egyptian architect and educator Ramses Wissa Wassef, and his wife Sophie Habib Georgi, embarked on an experiment about creativity that would attract attention from prominent figures in the art world, such as former director of the Stedelijk Willem Sandberg, artist Etel Adnan and philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Wassef intended the experiment to prove that creativity is innate and anyone can practice art. Discouraged by 20th century urban culture’s monotonous mass production and lack of creativity, he set out to teach children who were ‘uninhibited’ and isolated from ‘modern civilization’ to weave tapestries.  

In Let Textiles Talk, the Stedelijk combines the tapestries with works by Etel Adnan, Karel Appel, Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, Sheila Hicks, Jean Lurçat and others. These works take us on a transnational journey through history, raising questions about how the tapestries and their makers have been contextualised over the years, and proposing perspectives from which we can view the experiment today.

A group of Egyptian children, (textile) artists from all over the world and a former museum director tell their personal stories. These stories have been strung together by Amanda Pinatih into a mosaic story about textile art, creative expression, and revaluation of the collection.

More information: https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/let-textiles-talk

Location:
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam, NL
www.stedelijk.nl