New York Textile Month is upon us again. During the entire month of September, our beloved New York City is home to shows, lectures, workshops and studio visits - like ours! - dedicated to all things tactile and textile.
There are so many wonderful events as part of this year’s NYTM programming. But, one in particular that is worth checking out is Belgium is Design Textiles Revealed.
Christoph Hefti
Highlighting seven of the most innovative and talented artists and designers based in Belgium working in the textile medium, this show will be the first of its kind in North America.
"Whether it is in furniture, wall hangings or artistic installations, traditional ideas of Belgian textile design are being confounded and recontextualised, with the event in New York showing that the discipline is spinning, weaving and meshing new stories."
Textiles Revealed is a wonderful opportunity to connect with the featured artists and designers. In anticipation of the show, I have highlighted the artists and their work here.
Alice Leens uses cord and rope to create intricate, repeating, undulating pieces. At once simplistic and complex, the resulting work is calming while simultaneously calling into question the materiality of her chosen medium. Leens says about her work:
Du fil à la surface, Alice Leens
“If it were necessary to give meaning to my work, it would be this one: to allow the spectator to let themself be touched, even if only for a moment, by the beauty of a banal object that they no longer see.”
Ligne/surface, Alice Leens
BedrossianServaes is a design studio founded by Flavien Servaes and Ani Bedrossian. The pair is exhibiting a series of woven pieces incorporating natural fibers, such as wool, linen and mohair. Their work is reinterpreted using traditional jacquard techniques but calling to mind nomadic structures, windows and entryways.
BedrossianServaes
Chevalier Masson and Diane Steverlynck have an ongoing collaboration under the label, lænd. Presenting three works in New York, the pair aims to use waste fibers from a local weaving mill and translate them into a thick felt suitable for furniture.
lænd
Christoph Hefti uses traditional hand knotting technique to create his abstract and avant-garde rugs. Working for esteemed fashion houses, Hefti manages a parallel studio practice. When his quest for new forms of expression lead him to Nepal, Hefti embraced a new way of working.
Christoph Hefti
"Christoph rediscovered the direct interaction between the designer and the craftsman and became fascinated by the use of traditional crafts in a contemporary context. He approaches the mystical and even spiritual tradition of storytelling textiles through his very personal yet worldly themes.”
Christoph Hefti
Decluuz by Luc Druez brings the large-scale tapestries of his Golden Ladies series to the United States for the first time. A limited edition series of anonymous gold-hued portraits, Druez describes them as "seven women, seven luminaries, seven virtues or seven deadly sins.”
Decluuz
"The innovation of the material presides over all the creations of A + Z DESIGN to give a new dimension to the textile language, to its artistic implications, fashion or design.”
A + Z Design
Geneviève Levivier working under the moniker, A + Z Design combines an innate interest in chemistry with the perspective of a contemporary artist. Employing scientists to help her with research and design, Levivier is able to create something wholly unique and actively environmentally conscious. Incorporating plant-based mediums whenever possible, and celebrating naturalist imagery in her work.
A + Z Design
Krjst Studio is a marriage of art, design and researched founded by Justine de Moriamé and Erika Schillebeeckx. The duo speaks of their creative practice and inspiration process:
Krjst Studio
“This is how we start searching, sorting, archiving. Colors, shapes and materials become a puzzle of data from which we seek combinations that comforts: "Organization, harmony, chaos and structure"; to finally obtain a poetic moment - a moment of intimacy - a work with space, in which the public finds the warmth of what is reassuring and the anxiety of what can be discovered.”
Krjst Studio
Belgium Is Design, Textiles Revealed opens September 26th and runs until October 3rd at Unix Gallery. For more information, check out the gallery website, here.
Addendum
One of the MOST talented designers I know, and one of the kindest - Thomas Hamil