The Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States
April 20–September 13, 2025
The Museum of Modern Art has announced Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, an in-depth exhibition that delves into the dynamic intersections between weaving and abstraction.
The exhibition will include approximately 150 works in a range of mediums—from textiles and basketry to painting, drawing, sculpture, and media works—exploring the overlap between abstract art, weaving, craft, and fashion. Woven Histories challenges longheld notions of the weave as a function of textile alone, exploring the many forms both warp and weft have taken when explored by abstract artists over the past 100 years.
Inspired by contemporary artists’ interest in, and engagement with, both traditional and avant-garde weaving practices, Woven Histories hinges on key historical moments during which these intersections are clearest, from the early 20th century, through the postwar moment, and continuing today. The exhibition will expand the notion of the development of abstraction from its earliest days, challenging its status as a solely conceptual and formalist framework by suggesting that its materiality—found in woven, knotted, and braided fabric—is equally critical to its understanding and success.
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. The exhibition is curated by Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art.
The Museum of Modern Art presentation is organized by Esther Adler, Curator, with Emily Olek, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawing and Prints, and Paul Galloway, Collection Specialist, Department of Architecture and Design.
Previously on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the exhibition’s final presentation will be at MoMA, with numerous works not seen at earlier venues.
Learn more at MoMA.
