PAST EXHIBITION
The Art of Moroccan Textiles
May 8, 2008—June 21, 2008
Press Release
Cavin-Morris Gallery is pleased to announce The Art of Moroccan Textiles, in association with Gebhart Blazek of Austria, from May 8 through June 21, 2008. Included in the exhibition with be the amazingly serial and subtle natural dye kilims from the High Atlas Mountains, tantalizingly glimpsed in the opening scenes of the film, Babel.
The minimalism of one striped and amuletically-motifed kilim is compelling, but when seen as a group, the variations become significant and hypnotic. According to Blazek in his article, Earth and Moon, Kilims from the Ourika Valley (HALI, #139), there was a brief window of time when high quality kilims were available, but that window is now closed. This grouping offers an opportunity for connoisseurs and contemporary painting lovers to gain insight into this rarely seen part of the ethnosphere.
The low-key but powerful way these textiles fulfill tradition and still carry the voice of the individual maker is a profound part of the viewing experience. The irregularities and variations in the undyed wool create landscapes (known as abrash) are evocative of the Atlas region in Morocco while being markedly different from those seen in the abrash of the rich textiles of another desert people, the Navajo of the American southwest. Cavin-Morris Gallery has always reveled in the crossroads of place, genealogy, women’s creativity, and artistic vision manifest in woven, embroidered and tie-dyed textiles from all parts of the world.
Also included in the exhibition’s painterly theme will be shawls and cloths minimally dyed and marked with henna, created with talismanic intent for protection, as well as a rare group of spectacularly colored tie-dyed shawls, too fragile to be worn now, but still enigmatic and vividly pigmented with expressionistic geometrics. We are also fortunate to have a man’s ceremonial hooded mantel from the Ait Ouaouzgite Berber people.
For further information, please contact Shari Cavin, Mariko Tanaka, or Randall Morris at 212 226 3768, e: Blugriot@aol.com.
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