ART CITIES:N.York-Françoise Grossen

Part of an important, cutting-edge scene in the late ‘60s and ’70s, Françoise Grossen uses a knotting and braiding technique to create large-scale sculptures that hang from the ceiling, emerged more than four decades ago with a handful of female artists like Sheila Hicks or Lenore Tawney, who broke with tradition to make Avant-Garde Abstract art, not tapestries or rugs, with fibers.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Blum & Poe Gallery Archive

In Françoise Grossen’s solo exhibition that spans 30 years of work are on presentation segments of her practice: hanging sculpture, floor works, and a series of maquettes that preceded her expansive installations of the ‘70s. In the ‘60s, Françoise Grossen rejected the rectilinear loom that constrained contemporary weaving for an intuitive approach to fiber that resulted in the creation of large-scale, suspended rope forms constructed of knots, loops, braids, and twists. Grossen’s freehand, three-dimensional handling of the medium was considered a revolutionary gesture that upset the traditional hierarchy subordinating craft to art. Grossen found inspiration in utilitarian structures and objects made of fiber, such as rope suspension bridges, Peruvian khipus, marine ropes for docking and anchoring, and natural forms such as the exoskeletons of insects. Her practice has always involved translating these sources into abstract forms through a cumulative, repetitive approach that she describes as “Rope upon rope, braid after braid”.  The earth tones, natural fibers, and found materials she employs capture her generation’s desire to return to nature and reject consumerism, while her use of geometric shapes and repetitive patterns exemplify the clean, minimalist line of the era’s design. Her Hanging sculptures, which negate the convention of presenting fiber works two-dimensionally as tapestries, Grossen’s Floor series draws the viewer’s focus from the wall, this time to the ground. For these, Grossen was partially inspired by the contemporaneous avant-garde dance of downtown New York that did away with the stage and instead explored movements made for the floor. The maquettes of her large-scale installations are accompanied by vintage photography of their sprawling counterparts, the delicate nature of the models contrasted by the sheer magnitude of the works they preluded. “Mermaid I”, “Embryo” and several of the maquettes on view, were thought to be long lost but fundonly recently from Grossen’s studio archives as she prepared for her 2016 solo exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Finally, on view for the first time, Grossen presents the ultimate iterations of her suspended rope work series: “Alpha”, “Beta”, “Gamma (Signe II)”, and “Delta” (1991-93), these works serve as the denouement to a thirty-year practice in fiber.

Info: Blum & Poe Gallery, 19 East 66 Street, New York, Duration: 3/11/17-6/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com