ART-TRIBUTE:Weaving and other Practices…

This Tribute that seems to have begun in the days of COVID-19 to fill the gaps of current events in art, a timeliness that was canceled in the blink of an eye, is an issue that has been on my mind for many years. As independent curator, my relationship with Weaving, Sewing, Embroidery, Knitting that either emerges through traditional methods and materials or through contemporary practice, concerns me since January 1996. Because it was crucial for me, my meeting with Janine Antoni and our coexistence at the renovated at that time exhibition space “Nikos Kessanlis” of the Athens School of Fine Arts, during the exhibition “Everything That’s Interesting Is New” (20/1-20/4/1996) with artworks by Dakis Joannou Collection. I met and lived with Janine Antoni every day for 3 months in the same space at a very close distance, she was waving “Slumber” (1993) the blanket of her dreams. Every night she was sleeping inside the exhibition space connected with an electroencephalogram (EEG) system that recorded her dreams, and during the day she was waving on her own postmodern loom the blanket she was using at night. That time I promised to myself that I will organize an exhibition with women artists that are using in their practice traditional methods and means of expression like: embroidery, loom, knitting, sewing, wool, yarn and fabrics, in a new way mutating and transforming them into contemporary sculptures, paintings and installations or come alive through performance, photography or video. Involving only Greek women artists, the project “Weaving the Future” began in June 2019 at is a “work in progress”, in the project and through the diversity of means of expression and the different generations, we are invited to consider the role they played in history and how they shaped their own power, the anthropogeography of a country. Because the project is continuing on a realistic level with forthcoming exhibitions that we will announce and present you soon… This tribute is a presentation and logging of artists on the international art scene, men and women, on the way they are using, developing and ascribing all of the above. Every day for a month we will present you an artist of the international art scene and his/her work, not strictly historically, starting, with my starting point, Janine Antoni who has incorporated the above means of expression her performances and installations.
This way we will unwind this yarn through space and time… with consideration and through many different aspects.

Photo: Janine Antoni, Slumber, 1993, Performance with loom, yarn, bed, nightgown, EEG Machine and artist’s REM reading, Dimensions variable, © Janine Antoni, EMST Collection

Efi Michalarou

Janine Antoni is a visual artist who was born in  Bahamas in 1964. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is known for her unusual processes. Her body is both her tool for making and the source from which her meaning arises. Antoni’s early work transformed materials like chocolate and soap and used everyday activities like bathing, eating, and sleeping as sculptural processes. She carefully articulates her relationship to the world, giving rise to emotional states that are felt in and through the senses. In each piece, no matter the medium or image, a conveyed physicality speaks directly to the viewer’s body. Her work shows nationally and internationally. Antoni has exhibited at numerous major institutions among them including documenta14, at the Fridericianum, Kassel, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, The Istanbul Biennial ect. Her work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Antoni is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art/Glen Dimplex Artist Award in 1996, the Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award in 1998, the New Media Award, the Larry Aldrich Foundation Fellowship in 2011, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2011, a 2012 Creative Capital Artist Grant, and Anonymous Was A Woman Grant in 2014. In 2016, Antoni collaborated with Anna Halprin and Stephen Petronio on Ally, an exhibition presented by The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, with major support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.