Art Berbère, Regards Sur Une Collection

Until November 1, Espace 251 Nord in Liege is featuring Art Berbère, regards sur une collection, an exhibition offering a unique opportunity to discover the rich Amazigh (Berber) patrimony through the exceptional Lucien Viola collection of antique weavings and clothing for ceremonial and daily use. For the first time in Europe, architectural elements and exceptional Berber ceilings from the 20th century will be featured as well. This installation allows for the discovery of some of the myths that surround and explain these North African masterworks, retracing the exact origins of each weaving.

Visit the Espace 251 Nord website.

Boy's cape, akhnif  -   Collection Lucien Viola -  Photo by Philippe De Formanoir

Shifting Values of Plaited Power

Weaving traditions used to make mats throughout the Pacific—makaloa from Hawai’i, i’e toga from Samoa, sese from Vanuatu, kabae (male dance mat) from Kiribati, jaki-ed from the Marshall Islands, as well as examples from the rainforests of Borneo, Philippines, and the Solomon Islands—are being highlighted in Shifting Values of Plaited Power, on view at the Honolulu Museum of Art through August 9, 2015. Drawn from the museum’s collection, the mats in the show highlight the region’s skilled weaving traditions. They are often ornamented with patterned, abstract designs or adorned with added fringe, feathers, or bits of yarn, each distinctive ethnic and regional identifiers. Respected and coveted as heirloom items, the common denominator between these weavings from far-flung islands is hand plaiting, done without a loom and originally made only of natural fibers such as pandanus (pandanus tectorius), rattan (calameae), and other sedge grasses.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Mat  -  Borneo  -  Mid-20th century

Jaki-ed or nieded (woman's skirt)  -  Marshall Islands  -  19th-20th century

Images courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art

Kuba Textiles: Geometry in Form, Space, and Time

Kuba Textiles: Geometry in Form, Space, and Time, at the Neuberger Museum of Art from March 1–June 28, 2015, is the first exhibition to bring together works from two of the earliest collections of Kuba textiles: the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, founded by Leopold II in 1897; and the Sheppard Collection at Hampton University in Virginia, gathered between 1890 and 1910 by the American Presbyterian Congo missionary William Henry Sheppard, who in 1892 was the first Westerner to be received by a Kuba king. Additional important loans to the exhibition come from the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and three private collections. In total, the exhibition features eighty-two Kuba artworks (forty-one textiles and forty-one objects), most being publicly exhibited for the first time.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Woman's overskirt  -  Kuba, D.R. Congo  -  Late 19th to early 20th century

Image courtesy of the Neuberger Museum of Art

San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show 2015

More than eighty of the world’s top tribal art specialists will once again showcase art, jewelry, antiques, and accessories from the most remote areas on the planet at the twenty-ninth annual San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show, held February 6– 8, 2015, at Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion. Ranging from galleries that have been doing business for generations to dealers who launched their careers collecting in the field, the artwork offered here is always stimulating and represents some of the best to be found in North America. The gala opening reception on the evening of February 5 benefits the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and is a not-to-be-missed event that allows first access to the wide-ranging treasures that the show presents.

For more information about the event, visit the official website.

Red, White and Bold: Masterworks of Navajo Design, 1840-1870

On view now at the Denver Art Museum,  Red, White and Bold: Masterworks of Navajo Design, 1840-1870 presents about fifty of the greatest examples of Navajo textile design. Drawing from the DAM collections, other museums, and private collections, this exhibition will surprise and delight museum visitors with the bold use of color and sophisticated design sensibilities. Showing works created as prestige shoulder blankets, this exhibition will explore the designer’s eye in pattern development and layout—and especially highlight the effect the textile would have as it was worn draped around a human form to enhance the stature and visibility of the wearer.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Poncho, ca. 1850

Installation view

Images courtesy of the Denver Art Museum

Trading Style - Weltmode im Dialog

On view now at the Museum der Weltkulturen in Frankfurt is an unprecedented dialogue between past and present worlds of fashion. Trading Style presents over 500 historic objects from traditional societies all over the world, photographs and films from the Weltkulturen Museum’s collection, and designs for clothing and accessories by four international fashion labels. 

For more information, visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Museum der Weltkulturen Frankfurt

Threads of Identity: Contemporary Maya Textiles

Maya peoples of Guatemala and southeastern Mexico are renowned for their time-honored tradition of magnificent attire. Today’s repertoire of Maya traditional clothing, called traje, developed primarily during the Colonial Period (1521-1821 C.E.) as a forced adoption of European dress. Today’s fashions, as adaptations of imposed, foreign modes to indigenous couture, are testimony to Maya perseverance in spite of hundreds of years of colonization, enslavement and genocide. [i]Threads of Identity: Contemporary Maya Textiles[/i], now on view at The Mint Museum, is dedicated to these historically rich and visually stunning garments. This exhibition features fashions of the Kaqchikel, Ixil, K’iche’, Mam, Tz’utujil, Chuj, Awakatek, Jakaltek and Poqomchi’ from Guatemala, and Tzotzil and Tzeltal from Chiapas, Mexico.

View the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of The Mint Museum

They Wove for Horses: Diné Saddle Blankets

It is no secret that the Navajo (who call themselves the Diné) excelled at weaving. While most of their textiles were produced for trade, they had a strong tradition of producing saddle blankets for their own horses. These weavings span the duration of Navajo weaving from the first half of the nineteenth century to the present. The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture is currently presenting They Wove for Horses: Diné Saddle Blankets, an exhibition that examines innovation and continuity in this quiet but important indigenous tradition. It also looks at the variety of weaving techniques employed as well as the range of yarns from which these blankets were formed.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe