Art Institute of Chicago
September 2019
August 3, 2019–February 17, 2020
The Art Institute of Chicago commemorates the centenary of the Bauhaus with an exhibition highlighting the output of the acclaimed German art school’s textile workshop and its impact on modern and contemporary American art. Weaving beyond the Bauhaus features fifty works both on and off the loom by pioneering artists such as Anni Albers, Claire Zeisler, Lenore Tawney, Otti Berger, Gunta Stölzl, Else Regensteiner, Ethel Stein, and Sheila Hicks.
Weaving beyond the Bauhaus channels the voices of the artists themselves, who tell their own stories through wall texts as well as original postcards, correspondence, and ephemera. The exhibition reflects the movement’s innovations, with their “playful productivity”—in the words of Anni Albers—on full display. Together, the Bauhaus artists and their American compatriots pushed the envelope of woven structure, sometimes beyond the loom, challenging reductive notions about the role of weaving and textiles within the broader art world. Their material explorations spanned cellophane and modern metallic thread, glass ornaments, leather and plastics, beads, feathers, pieces of slate, and rubber bands, incorporating elements of painting and printmaking.
Press release