Apollo Magazine

Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art

The Met is pairing ancient Andean weaving with textiles by 20th-century women artists to explore the ties that bind them.

Tunic (1000–1476), Central coast artist, Peru. Photo: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

The last few years have seen a surge in interest around artists who use traditional craft techniques in their work, as the recent surveys of Anni Albers and Sophie Taeuber-Arp at Tate Modern will attest. This show at the Met has a broad remit, pairing examples of ancient Andean weaving techniques with works by four modern textile artists: Albers, as well as Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney and Olga de Amaral (5 March–16 June). All these women were deeply influenced by the intricate loom-work of Andean artists and the show features textiles from as far back as the first millennium B.C., tracing the common threads that run across the centuries between these seemingly disparate bodies of work and celebrating the handicraft and artistic vision of these four women. Find out more from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary

Rallo (1957), Sheila Hicks. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: Matt Flynn; © Smithsonian Institution

Red Meander (1954), Anni Albers. Photo: Tim Nighswander/Imaging4Art; © Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY; © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2024

Tunic (1000–1476), Central coast artist, Peru. Photo: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

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