The Fabric of Modernity

About the exhibition

For the first time in Germany, the Kunsthalle München is presenting tapestries that were produced in the Gobelins Manufactory in Paris from designs created by the most prestigious artists of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier, Joan Miró and Louise Bourgeois.With innumerable large-scale wall hangings that span the period from the end of World War I to the present day, the exhibition reveals just how surprisingly modern the traditional craft of tapestry weaving truly is.

TRADITION & INNOVATION

The exhibition showcases one virtually unknown aspect in the oeuvre of countless modern artists of international renown: taking the age-old weaving technique as a basis, they have turned their attention to tapestry, constantly re-interpreting the textile art form in new ways. Working to artists’ designs, the Gobelins Manufactory, which was founded during the reign of Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), and other French workshops produced not just tapestries, but also furniture and carpets of outstanding quality, examples of which are also on show in the exhibition.

TEXTILE Masterpieces

The textile masterpieces were created in the manufactories by working closely with the weavers; their combination of artistic finesse and superb craftsmanship remains unsurpassed to this day. The old techniques of producing and dyeing the yarn, weaving and knotting are virtually unchanged in the making of the tapestries. From preparing the artist’s model through to the finished wall hanging, creating a large-scale tapestry still takes thousands of hours of work.

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Exhibition Leaflet

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Making-of

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Catalog

Accompanying the exhibition is a comprehensive catalogue published by the Kunsthalle München and Hirmer Art Publishers. With over 140 colour illustrations, it includes contributions by Carina Kaminski, Marie-Hélène Massé-Bersani, Lucile Montagne, Gérald Remy Thierry Sarmant and K.L.H. Wells and a foreword by Hervé Lemoine und Roger Diederen. (German edition)

Price at the Kunsthalle: € 29

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Zoom In

Four of our tapestries were photographed by Michael Naumann (Tiefenpixel) who turned them into high resolution images. Zoom in – you can’t get closer to the masterpieces than this!

Featuring a Pyrenean panorama, the spectacular triptych The Pyrenees (1924) by Edmond Yarz is almost eight metres wide. The landscape painter celebrates a romantic France, devoid of any trace of World War I and the impact of advancing industrialisation.

Named after days of the week, Tosani’s Clothes series with the tapestry Friday (2002–2010) explores how, in an ambivalent relationship, protective and decorative clothing disguises the body, yet makes it visible.

The tapestry H.W.K. (2005–2015) by Michel Aubry is composed of three aerial photographs, taken over a period of several decades and arranged to form a single picture. Different colours and weaving techniques are used to highlight three zones around Hartmannswillerkopf mountain (H.W.K.) in Alsace.

The expressive brushstrokes of the painted model by Alain Séchas have been woven with such skill that the tapestry A Map of Japan (2012–2017) still appears to be covered in a thick layer of paint. A mixture of wool and silk thread was used and new yarn colours created in order to reproduce the intensity and variety of hues of the original painting as faithfully as possible.