27/09/2024 General News, Timed-Online Auctions
Textile art can often be viewed as ‘women’s work’ and ‘craft’, but there are many contemporary explorations of rich techniques in fibre and cloth. Today, artists not only challenge the division between art and craft – where art is seen as a higher form of creative expression and craft lower – but also challenge the notion that any form of creation be limited to a single gender. This process of questioning and experimentation leads to exciting combinations of historical traditions and techniques, topical socio-historical conditions and even future visions – as is evident in the works of three bold artists currently featured in our Contemporary Art online auction.
LEFT: Lot 23 | Medieval scene | R15 000 - 20 000
RIGHT: Lot 22 | He Was Well Versed In The Zodiac; But His Letters Were Weak | R10 000 - 15 000
Michaela Younge
Michaela Younge uses the age-old tradition of felting wool and embroidery – embroidery is one of the older forms of textile art, stemming from the East around 30,000 BC – with a delicate twist of dark humour and current context to reinvigorate the medium. The artist is influenced by pop culture, news, childhood stories and fables. Her delicate images, then hold both a nostalgic element as well as recognisable topical events and the combination of violence/strangeness within seemingly serene, familiar scenes is key to her works.
Creating narratives through textile has its roots in many histories from around the world, and Younge’s work seems to continue this narrative tool whilst subverting it by combining reality and absurdity, tradition and misconduct – what the viewer is left with is a question, rather than an answer.
Lot 25: Kirubel Melke | The Road | R25 000 - 35 000
Kirubel Melke
Kirubel Melke, born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is one of many male artists who are delving into textile art and going against stereotypes of what would have normally been seen as more ‘feminine work’. Growing up with a mother who worked in a textile factory, Melke would come to understand the medium of textile as a non-neutral object.
“For [Melke], a fragment of fabric is the metaphor of an individual as a member of a larger societal fabric. Clothing trends reveal the roots and current interests of a society, as well as the transition from tradition to a modernity that is now globalized.” [1]
LEFT: Lot 27 | Siwa Mgoboza | T.I.N.A THE IMAGINED NATIONS OF AFRICADIA III | R 5 000 - 10 000
RIGHT: Lot 26 | Siwa Mgoboza | Untitled (from the Africadia series) | R 15 000 - 20 000
Siwa Mgoboza
Siwa Mgoboza creates new and beautiful worlds by reworking existing textiles. The artist works with the fraught relationship between difference and belonging in a South African context. Having grown up abroad, upon his return he was distraught by the ideal vision he had in his head of an egalitarian country versus the reality of pervasive inequality.
“As response to this, Mgoboza has created Africadia – a means to transcend – if only momentarily – prejudice based on preconceived notions of gender, race, religion, class and nationality. Hybridity is at the core of the Africadian experiment and Mgoboza imagines a world where absolutes become fluid and open to debate.” [2]
Drawing on his Hlubi heritage, which is native to South Africa, the artist makes use of Ishweshwe cloths. Traditionally worn by women and viewed as a ‘recognisable African’ fabric, the cloth was in fact brought to Southern Africa from India via Dutch colonial trade routes. For the artist this then becomes a symbol of Africadia, of cultural exchange across the globe, of cultural revitalisation and indigenous histories. Mgoboza not only allows the fabric to exist beyond gender, but beyond time as it speaks to both historical context and imagined futures.
[1] Versant Sud [available: https://en.versantsud.org/kirubel-melke]
[2]WHATIFTHEWORLD, 2016. [available: https://www.whatiftheworld.com/exhibition/solo-project/ ]
Auction
26 September to 3 October 2024
Discover more from Contemporary Art
SALE ENQUIRIES
Cape Town: +27 21 422 5100 | amy@aspireart.net
Johannesburg: +27 10 109 7989 | carina@aspireart.net