Fair Enough: High Fiber, Part 1

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off
Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?
Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting
Fair Enough: Art or Trash?
Fair Enough: Prologue to the Report
Fair Enough: ABMB, Part 1
Fair Enough: ABMB, Part 2
Fair Enough: Aqua Art
Fair Enough: Pulse
Fair Enough: Seven
Fair Enough: Scope
Fair Enough: NADA
Fair Enough: Ink
Fair Enough: A Peek at Art Miami
Fair Enough: Doubletake at Art Miami
Fair Enough: Art Miami
Fair Enough: My Just Right Breakfast
Fair Enough: Speaking Volumes
Fair Enough: Really Reductive

Louise Bourgeois at Kukje Gallery, Seoul; ABMB

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There has always been a strong textile sensibility at the fairs (see here, here, here and here for instance), but I have to say that Miami this year felt like a regular mill town. Thread and fabric, as well as weaving, quilting, beading, knotting, knitting and crochet were much in evidence. Obviously textile materials and techniques, often used in conjunction with paint and other conventional artmaking stuff, are simply a means for painters and sculptors to spin a tangible vision of their firing neurons. I saw much more than I can show you here--even in two posts (click onto Part 2 when you get to the end of this one)--but I hope you will find interesting the selection of images I have stitched together here.

Shezad Dawood painted found quilt at Chemould Contemporary, Mumbai; ABMB

Detail below

Cosima Von Bonin pieced quilt at Capital/Petzel, Cologne/New York; ABMB

Geraldine Javier diptych with photography and quilting at Silverlens Gallery, Seoul; Pulse

Detail below

Alighiero e Boetti enbroidered map, 1989, at Sperone Westwater, New York; ABMB
Detail below

Rosemarie Trockel knitted painting at Spruth Magers, Berlin and London; ABMB

Detail of the purl face below

Regine Schumann crochet hanging, shown in a black-lit booth, at Galerie Renate Bender, Berlin

Detail above

Full view below

Blake Rayne silkscreened paintings with polyester ribbon (with Liz Deschanes photogram between them) at Sutton Lane Gallery, London; ABMB

Isa Genzken at Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin; ABMB

Who would have thought that satin-patterned sheer fabric, the stuff of evening gowns, would find a partner with graffiti on plastic panels?

Another odd pairing: neatly folded graffiti (or are those lines what's left after spray painting?); installation at Taka Ishii, Tokyo; ABMB

Detail below

Ricardo Rendon perforated felt at Mitterrand+Sanz, Geneva; NADA

Jose Lerma construction with carpet pieces at Green Gallery, Milwaukee; NADA

You can't tell by this picture, but the booth is just a smidge wider than this work, which is about five feet, possibly the tiniest booth in any of the fairs

Marcelo Cidade painted felt at Vermelho, Sao Paolo; ABMB

Detail below

Louise Bourgeois, daughter of tapestry restorers, drew heavily from that childhood at the end of a long career

Above: The great arc of Fuseau (Needle) with a coil of flax fiber, at Galerie St. Moritz, St. Moritz; ABMB

Moving counterclockwise around the Karsten Greve booth: When I Was Young, center. (I showed the totem, with detail, in ABMB, Part 1)

Detail of center work below

More LB, here at Hauser & Wirth, London

Above: vitrine with tulle-swathed cloth figure and fabric collage on back wall

The collage, below

Ghada Amer acrylic-and-thread paintings at Goodman Gallery, Capetown; ABMB

Detail below

Diem Chau's embroidered vignettes--stitching on sheer fabric stretched over saucers--at G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle; Aqua Art

Closeup of Cheongsam, below

Elena del Rivero paper "dishcloth" at Galerie Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid; ABMB

Stitching detail below

Angelo Filomeno embroidery on burlap olive bags at Galerie Lelong, New York; ABMB

Detail below

Nick Cave button-covered "soundsuit" at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; ABMB

Detail below

Installation view of Cave's work. A former Alvin Ailey dancer, Cave now creates these suits, which make sounds when the wearer moves. This group, completely covered in buttons, recalls the 19th-century Cockney button suit worn for parades and carnivals

Installation view at Victoria Miro Gallery, London, at ABMB, where all the work was connected by a textile thread. Foreground, Maria Nepomuceno basket-coiled sculpture; rear, Conrad Shawcross rope-twisting maching; right, Yayoi Kusama soft wall

Specific views below