Visiting the Textile Museum

 

 

Last Saturday I walked to the Textile Fashion Center / Museum for the opening of a new exhibition, and also a sort of re-opening of the whole place after some refurbishments made to the entrance hall during the summer (while they were still half-closed due to the pandemic anyway). 

Jaume Plensa's gigantic sculpture House of Knowledge is still sitting in front of the building, looking across the street towards the University.

On the ground floor there was an exhibition of Young Swedish Design (Ung Svensk Form). I think one recurring theme there as well as in the other exhibitions was recycling.

 

 

 

Upstairs, the new exhibition opening that day was Material World by British artist Ian Berry. I was really impressed with his work and hopefully I'll be able to go back and see this exhibition again (as it will be going on through April next year). 

"Worn jeans are the medium that British artist Ian Berry uses in his artwork. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake his works for blue toned photographs or indigo coloured oil paintings. Up close you realize that they are carefully put together by layer upon layer of denim."

The third exhibition, Craft Rituals, has been going on over summer I think (although I never got round to go and see it until now).

"Craft Rituals is a colourful fairy tale world and an experimental multifaceted work of art in the borderland between the tactile, analogue and digital. Specially composed music, a 50-metre-long film projection, ritual handicraft installations and interactive instruments create an extraordinary, playful and meditative experience."

"Inspired by Norse mythology and legends of the Norns - the three goddesses Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, who sit and spin threads at the foot of the world tree - we tell a hypervisual tale of wool, the power of women, sustainability and craftsmanship as a superpower. -  Craft Rituals is created by artist Aia Jüdes."

 
As I didn't take the time to stick around for the whole full half hour that this ... show? ... takes, I might go back and give that another go as well. It also involves some interactive parts - there were things you could touch to make sounds and images change. I never quite got the hang of it, but the general atmosphere was sort of dreamy/magical.

If you like, you can read a bit more about the exhibitions here (hoping the link works).

Weekend Reflections / Social Distancing Continued

 
The weather is still sunny, and the temperature "chilly spring" - as in people still wearing winter clothes, but more and more signs of spring showing up in nature nevertheless.

Yesterday the Swedish government declared organized meetings involving more than 50 people forbidden. Still far from the total lock-down in many other countries, though. (For better or for worse, only the future will be able to judge.) Everyone with any kind of flu/cold symptoms is of course (still) supposed to stay home; and people over 70 or in a risk group are urged to keep isolated and minimize all contact with others. Little Red Riding Hood is not supposed to go visiting grandmother (or the other way round) - and everyone else as well is strongly advised to think twice (or more) before undertaking any kind of travel.

I'm still going out for daily walks (not breaking any rules) but keeping away from people. Like last week, I've also stayed away from the city centre during the week - but decided once again to go that way today (Saturday morning), to buy myself another bouquet of tulips (provided the flower shop was not crowded - and it wasn't) ... and generally check on the progress of spring.

Even the ducks seem to be practicing social distancing and "three is a crowd" just now.

Out of the twelve stone chairs in the square (a permanent sculpture art installation), only one was occupied. Certainly no crowds of 50 to be seen.

A new addition is a green mini square with colourful footprints at respectful distance from each other. And a sign saying something like "a safe place to meet". (Mostly meant as a reminder to keep your distance, I think.)

Services in the Church of Sweden churches in our city have been cancelled for this Sunday (tomorrow), in order to follow the new restrictions.

The cherry trees beginning to blossom are a reminder of new life on the other side of winter...

On my way home, after my visit to the flower shop, I passed by this place, which is a small arts and crafts shop and gallery, where local artists sell their handicraft. I recalled having seen an ad for a current exhibition, and decided to take a look through the door to see if it was crowded in there or not... It was not. The only other person inside was the salesperson. So I went in, and very much enjoyed the exhibition of colourful textile art.

(I also bought a couple of little things but as one may end up as a future present for someone, I'm not showing those. Yet, anyway.)

Surrealistic Textiles

Two Saturdays in a row I’ve been going for quite long walks, both with the Textile Fashion Center as my goal (or turning point!). This building is situated on the other side of the city centre from where I live. Besides the Textile Museum it also includes the Textile College, some of the town’s public sculptures and murals, and a café and a restaurant. 

 

As I like the place, and have an annual pass to the museum, I often find it a good destination when I don’t know where to go. There’s also more than one way one can choose to walk (or take the bus) to get there and back again.

Just now there is an exhibition in the museum showing textile prints by famous artists from the 1950’s (and clothes made from those fabrics). The most famous probably Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. I have to confess I did not know before that they also made textile patterns.

 

Salvador Dalí – Flower Ballet
(I liked this dress – it even looks comfortable!)

Pablo Picasso

Saul Steinberg – Arab Town

Andy Warhol – Happy Butterfly Day

 

There was also a big screen with a couple of short films running, one showed Picasso at work, and the other Destino by Salvador Dali & Walt Disney. (Just checked YouTube and found them both there, so including the links here. I found them both rather mesmerizing to watch, even though not really my most favourite kind of art.)

Sharing with: Shadow Shot Sunday

December 7 – Christmas Village

I think I have blogged about this before, but I take my chanches - if I don’t remember when or where, you probably don’t either!

Besides – isn’t repetition is the very essence of tradition anyway?

Wall hangings, both embroidered and paper ones, belong in old Swedish traditions – and not least for winter/Christmas. This is a textile one my mother made some time in my childhood, using a mix of patchwork and and embroidery. The size is 64 x 26 cm (25 x 10 inches). Mum  also used to sew a lot of our clothes, so used leftover pieces of fabric from that.

She was always sewing or knitting or doing embroidery. The house was full of it, and in her retirement years she also made lots of things for sales or lotteries at fairs for the local history society. This is one of her ‘early’ works though, which I found in some drawer or box of Christmas decorations when going through things in the House. And it is one of those I chose to keep, as it had memories attached for me…

… Because besides “itself”, this also reminds me of a minature winter village landscape that she/we used to set up on top of a bookshelf in my room at Christmas, with little houses and a church made of cardboard, and figures of home-made play-dough, all made and handpainted by mum. They stood on snowy ground made of cotton wool, sprinkled with boric acid crystals; and there was a little lake made by a mirror.

Patterns

A few more “random rambling” pictures from the ground floor exhibition hall at the Textile Museum.

(Those things whatever-they-are up in the ceiling were going round and round on a sort of conveyor belt.)

That dress seemed to be made from recycled plastic tubes and packages.

The ground floor exhibition was a lot about “patterns” and how we humans have always seemed to like to create them – from patterns on simple clay vessels back in the stone age, to the complicated digital graphics of today.

Actually the brain likes being exposed to “order of a high complexity” (one of the signs in the exhibition says). Our brains seem to enjoy recognizing and be challenged by patterns.

The two photos below are from a separate exhibition by students graduating from the Textile College.