REVIEW 2020:TRIBUTE-Weaving and other Practices…

This Tribute that seems to have begun in the days of COVID-19 to fill the gaps of current events in art, a timeliness that was canceled in the blink of an eye, is an issue that has been on my mind for many years. As independent curator, my relationship with Weaving, Sewing, Embroidery, Knitting that either emerges through traditional methods and materials or through contemporary practice, concerns me since January 1996. Because it was crucial for me, my meeting with Janine Antoni and our coexistence at the renovated at that time exhibition space “Nikos Kessanlis” of the Athens School of Fine Arts, during the exhibition “Everything That’s Interesting Is New” (20/1-20/4/1996) with artworks by Dakis Joannou Collection. I met and lived with Janine Antoni every day for 3 months in the same space at a very close distance, she was waving “Slumber” (1993) the blanket of her dreams. Every night she was sleeping inside the exhibition space connected with an electroencephalogram (EEG) system that recorded her dreams, and during the day she was waving on her own postmodern loom the blanket she was using at night. That time I promised to myself that I will organize an exhibition with women artists that are using in their practice traditional methods and means of expression like: embroidery, loom, knitting, sewing, wool, yarn and fabrics, in a new way mutating and transforming them into contemporary sculptures, paintings and installations or come alive through performance, photography or video. Involving only Greek women artists, the project “Weaving the Future” began in June 2019 at is a “work in progress”, in the project and through the diversity of means of expression and the different generations, we are invited to consider the role they played in history and how they shaped their own power, the anthropogeography of a country. Because the project is continuing on a realistic level with forthcoming exhibitions that we will announce and present you soon… This tribute is a presentation and logging of artists on the international art scene, men and women, on the way they are using, developing and ascribing all of the above. Every day for a month we will present you an artist of the international art scene and his/her work, not strictly historically, starting, with my starting point, Janine Antoni who has incorporated the above means of expression her performances and installations. This way we unwinded this yarn through space and time… with consideration and through many different aspects.-Efi Michalarou