FROM FIBRE TO FORM – Sofie Dawo’s Textile Art Between ZERO and Concrete Art

The exhibition “From Fiber to Form” traces the development of textile art in Germany from the 1960s to the 1970s and anchors it in its art-historical context. The focus is on the development from the pictorial nature of wall hangings to the increasing relief-like structuring of textile surfaces and the conquest of three-dimensional space.

In Germany in particular, the post-war years were not only a time of reconstruction and social upheaval, but also of radical artistic reorientation. On the one hand, the boundaries between applied and free textile art were abolished and, on the other, the introduction of textile materials into sculpture contributed to a renewal of this genre. Starting with free work on the loom in the 1950s, an intensive examination of the material and its processing possibilities began in the 1960s. Beyond a pictorial-representative function of textile art, innovative design concepts were tested that conquered the free space and were classified in art history with terms such as fiber art or art fabric.

With works by: Sofie Dawo, Marianne Aue, Hartmut Böhm, Hal Busse, Leo Erb, Oskar Holweck, Heinz Mack, Nanda Vigo, Günther Uecker, Erwin Thorn, Herman de Vries