Fowler Museum
“Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Textiles
from the Nuno Studio, Tokyo” Fowler Museum Through July
28
The first few steps into the Fowler Museum’s new
exhibition, “Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Textiles
from the Nuno Studio, Tokyo,” is a bit of a surreal
experience. Large veils of filmy white cloth, like sheeted mist,
stand sentry at the exhibition’s entrance. A large metallic
plaque at the entry helpfully informs the inquisitive that these
textiles are the artistic product of Reiko Sudo, director of
Japan’s NUNO corporation and that “since the 1980s,
Japan has been at the forefront of a revolution in textiles.”
That’s interesting enough, and the fabrics on display,
hanging from the ceiling in strange tapestries, are diverse and
colorful. The maze of fabric, small as it is, contains walls of
metallic films and spider’s webs. Some cloths look like
grandiose scrapings of transparent green plant tissue, glass inset
with melted swirls or patchwork quilts rent and rebound in an
ornamental fishing net. And though it’s forbidden to touch
the cloths in the main exhibit, there are squares of material
toward the exit that can be handled for the tactilely inclined. The
effect of actually touching the cloths is not as interesting as
looking at them, since they feel pretty much like expensive cloth.
It is, however, satisfying to be finally allowed to touch the
textiles after being eyed down by an ever-vigilant security guard
that stands sentry in the middle of the exhibit. A couple of cards
mounted on the wall inform viewers that these cloths were formed in
an amalgamation of traditional weaving materials, such as cotton or
silk, cobbled with more industrialized materials such as aluminum
or copper. One such cloth, mounted on the wall called Burner Dye,
looks like a large sheet of burnt steel. It is, in fact, material
hammered from stainless steel and hand burnt to create a strange,
decorative effect. The exhibition is neat, handsome and sparse. In
fact, it’s a bit too sparse, and what the museum provides is
only a brisk whisk for the feel and look of the fabric. Walking
through the exhibition gives a whiff of the modern Japanese textile
culture but hardly a substantial breath of information. The making
of the cloths seems to be a bizarre and fascinating process, and
it’s too bad the exhibition isn’t more informative.
Aside from a couple of title cards with a brief paragraph
describing the cloth, the creation of the textiles is still largely
a mystery. True, the exhibit mentions that the fabric goes through
some cruel and unusual punishment as many of the textiles are
sliced by blades, burnt by acids, or boiled into submission. But
there’s nothing within the exhibition that describes the
process in greater detail. It would also be nice to see examples of
these textiles put into more practical use than museum set pieces.
The exhibition may have Contemporary Textiles in its title, but
that shouldn’t prohibit it from showing a few dresses or
outfits, whether the cloths will be used to clothe the glamorous
models on the Paris runways or outfit security guards at Fowler
Museum. There is, however, a video with dull, slurred sound for the
desperately curious. Unfortunately, there are no seats to
accommodate those interested in listening to the drunken narrative
of what may or may not be an informative documentary. The curious
will have to stand while they strain their ears. And that’s
too bad. The exhibit has more potential than it ultimately lives up
to. There are oblique references to a “computerized
loom” and other such alien machinery used to spin the cloth.
It’s curious stuff, but there unfortunately seems to be a
thickly woven veil covering the really naughty bits. –
Ryan Joe