Thanks to a decolonial questioning of Western aesthetic hierarchies, and a continued feminist attention to female-connoted forms of craft, textile has enjoyed a renewed interest in the field of visual art. Recent theoretical turns towards materiality have also played a part in valorising it. This stands in marked contrast to how the modern institution of ‘fine art’ barely tolerated weaving, and other forms of textile and textile art.

In this way, several interlaced topics are at stake:

• A new art historical reception of textile
• The inclusion of textile in curating across biennials and art museums
• Textile in contemporary artistic practice and practice-based research.

The invited speakers in ‘Bobbing and Weaving’ are artists, historians and curators who present their ongoing work and research. Some of the questions that the symposium will deal with include the following:

What does (the question of) a national artistic canon look like from the perspective of textile? - considering how for instance weaving was involved in nation building during modernism, and at the same time is understood to be both local and trans-cultural.

What theories and practices can be proposed for textile’s deep and varied reach into contemporary mediality and subject positioning, from digitality to fashion?

According to Julia Bryan-Wilson, “textiles live at the edges of crises, often creating conflicts or tensions as much as assuaging them.” (Fray, 2017). What critical, imaginary, etc. dimensions might be added to, or beyond, what Bryan-Wilson in this way terms “textile politics”?

‘Bobbing and Weaving’ is convened by Lars Bang Larsen, Head of Art & Research at AHC (Art Hub Copenhagen), in the context of a research project on Charlotte Johannesson, hosted by Centre for Research in Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions at Aarhus University and supported by Ny Carlsberg Foundation.

Program:

14:15 Introduction - Lars Bang Larsen, Head of Art and Research at Art Hub Copenhagen

14:40 “Anna Thommesen, textile abstractions and cultural politics in the Danish post-war era.”
Dorthe Aagesen, Chief Curator and Senior Researcher at SMK.

As recent revisions have shown, the history of twentieth century art cannot be told without including the dynamic intersections with thread, fiber, fabric, and clothing. A central part of this history is occupied by weaving, which shares a fundamental premise with Western modernist abstraction through its defining structure of horizontal and vertical lines. More than just a contribution to the history of modernist abstraction, modern textile art also came to play a role for the evolving welfare state after World War II. Taking the work of the Danish weaver Anna Thommesen (1908-2004) as a case in point, this paper will discuss overlooked textile genealogies and contributions to 20th-century Danish art history, including entanglements with Danish cultural politics of the postwar years.

15:30 “Soft Machine”
Jakob Lena Knebl, artist-curator and professor of "Transmedia Art" at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and Markus Pires Mata, artist-curator, lecturer, and DJ.

In her practice, Knebl deals with the history of art and design as well as socio-cultural phenomena. She gives the possibility to experience how these fields influence and transform our identity in a sensual way. Her artistic practice focuses on sculpture, in combination with the space in installation settings, fusing textile materials with metal, ceramics, bronze and wood. Pires Mata studied fashion design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna under the guidance of Viktor & Rolf and Raf Simons, and is the founder of the fashion label “house of the very island’s club division middlesex klassenkampf but the question is where are you, now?” In their talk, Knebl and Mata will give insights into their artistic practice/s, combining positions from art and design history.

16:30 coffee and cake break

16:45 “Glitching the Pattern: The Poetics of Weaving and Computation”
Nanna Debois Buhl, artist and PhD

Technological tools—from computers to AI—shape our lives in ever-deeper ways, yet their inner workings often remain opaque. In this artist talk, I will discuss how I transform traditional weaving techniques through algorithmic systems and use weaving as a starting point for algorithmic artworks, exploring new perspectives on art historical material and new ways of understanding contemporary digital spheres. Through a presentation of recent artworks, I will ponder questions such as: What potential lies in examining digital components, such as code, through textile? How can weaving be a tool for dissent, for disrupting categories, or for (gender)political reflection? And what new meanings might emerge when threads meet data, when glitches disrupt order, when technology turns soft?

17:30 “I would like there to be a little more attack in this country. Charlotte Johannesson’s militancy.”
Lars Bang Larsen, Head of Art and Research at Art Hub Copenhagen

It was a tenet of modern art that handicraft could be a source of democratic renewal. In dis/continuation of this lineage, Charlotte Johannesson mobilised weaving as an extra-parliamentary image technology in the 1970s. Flipping weaving into bad art and useless craft, she forged a textile punk before punk and extended it into a tough frivolity that upset the logic of the militant image. In my talk I will discuss the exhibition Om Tyskland – i tiden (‘About Germany – in Time’) that Johannesson co-curated with her partner Sture at Stockholm’s Kulturhuset in 1975. An homage to Ulrike Meinhof of the West German terrorist group Rote Armée Fraktion, the exhibition ended up being censored and alienating everyone - including sympathisers on the left.

18:15 – 18:45 Discussion and concluding remarks,