“Despite being a craft dating back over 30,000 years, fiber work only started to get sculpturally experimental in a serious way in the 1960s and 70s. That turning point, and its subsequent path up to contemporary art, are the subject of Fiber: Sculpture 1960-Present, published this month by Prestel to coincide with an exhibition opening October 1 at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA).
“For many, fiber art is synonymous with women’s art,” Jill Medvedow, Ellen Matilda Poss Director at the ICA, writes in her forward to the book. “Knitting, crochet, weaving, braiding, and darning are historically associate with domestic work — clothing the body, providing warmth, adorning space — and speak to the strength as well as the exploitation of female labor.”
The 34 artists with their around 50 works show how over the decades these preconceptions about fiber art have been confronted, embraced, and unraveled. Fiber: Sculpture is cited as the first exhibition in 40 years to seriously address how a utilitarian practice morphed into an experiment in limitless dimensions, because that is one of the things that makes fiber sculpture special — its adaptability to space through its flexible form.”
Read the rest of the article and see luxe fiber images here.