Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

Olga de Amaral, one of the most recognized names in Latin American art, lives and works in her native Bogatá, Colombia. Tracing the artist’s career over five decades, the exhibition „Olga de Amaral: To Weave A Rock“ is the artist’s first major museum retrospective in the United States, consisting of some 60 works that elucidate her seminal influence and technical innovations.

Currently on view at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, it will travel to Cranbrook Art Museum from Oct. 30, 2021, through February 13, 2022.

Amaral’s woven sculptures are the result of a lifetime of experimentation and material studies drawing on techniques like plaiting and wrapping, using materials as varied as horsehair and gold leaf. Amaral has formed a unique visual language of abstraction that draws upon Colombia’s landscape and history as well as the artist’s own identity. Taking its title from an assignment Amaral had given to her students at the famed Haystack craft school in 1967, the exhibition „Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock“ poetically expounds on her expansive views of textile practice. Still practicing in her eighties, Olga de Amaral’s work offers a prescient exploration of the expressive potential of fiber at a moment of renewed interest in the medium by contemporary artists and historians alike.

„Olga de Amaral: To Weave A Rock“ is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition is curated by Laura Mott, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design, and Anna Walker, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The project is generously supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, a Craft Research Fund Grant from the Center for Craft, and The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts.