Special Topics in Modern Art (368-0-1)

Topic

Women and Textiles

Instructors

Christina Kiaer

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

This course examines woman artists of the twentieth century who worked with textiles—as fine art, as collective industrial production, and as craft. Historically, textiles were associated with "women's work" and domestic life and not taken seriously as art. We will investigate such topics as the modernist artists of the 1910s-1930s who challenged this division between craft and high art, such as Anni Albers at the Bauhaus, Sonia Delaunay in Paris, Liubov Popova of the Soviet avant-garde, and Norwegian Hannah Ryggen's acclaimed narrative tapestries; the female collectives of industrial textile designers of mid-century Italy and the Soviet Union; postwar Latin American artists such as Gego and Cecilia Vicuña, as well as the Arpillera workshops in Chile resisting the Pinochet regime; US feminist artists of the 1960s and 1970s who upended the masculine art world through their shared knowledge of traditional and experimental textile techniques, such as Faith Ringgold, Harmony Hammond, Miriam Schapiro and the Womanhouse collective; and throughout, the particular importance of textiles to speak to stories of exclusion and marginalization for artists of color, such as the Black quilters of Gee's Bend.

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration -- Reserved for Art History majors and minors, & Art Theory majors and minors.