GWU Textile Museum Exhibitions: "Intrinsic Beauty", "Art Uncovered", "Textiles 101"
Despite being native to the Greater Washington DC Area AND attending George Washington University I never visited GWU's Museum museum, having recently launched their centennial celebration.
The current exhibitions, "Intrinsic Beauty: Celebrating the Art of Textiles" and "Art Uncovered: Visionary Textile Scholars and their Archives", as well as the "Textiles 101 Gallery", all offered a thoughtful and detailed yet easy to grasp take on the history and merits of the curated pieces.
Given it's cost (free) and location (near the White House and a 10 minute walk from the closest metro station), I recommend it if you're in the area or visiting, whether you have a deep interest in textiles, enjoy discovering new information on fabrics, or want to learn more about fabric.
Even if none of those things are true, or if these aren't textiles you personally like, knowing more about what other fabrics or clothes exist, their properties, and your reactions to them can help inform your own personal tastes.
https://imgur.com/a/R1fIa9M
https://imgur.com/a/1VlaTNZ
The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum
Intrinsic Beauty: Celebrating the Art of Textiles | The George Wash...
As the museum launches its centennial year, "Intrinsic Beauty" celebrates textile making as one of the world’s oldest and most sophisticated art forms.
13 Replies
Intrinsic Beauty was really impressive; it had considerable depth in its 60 pieces, both in terms of cultures represented and items curated (clothing, accessories, rugs, altars, and more). The "intrinsic beauty of design, color, and technique" helps unify these seemingly disparate items, while also serving as a way to compare the different techniques used. Further aiding in this is commentary sourced from local and contemporary artisans, whose expertise added a lot to what could be an impersonal exhibition. Only negative is no flash photography.
(lots of pictures to come, general format is item then caption)
Intrinsic Beauty (cont)
The batik print is probably my favorite piece in either exhibition 🔥
Intrinsic Beauty (cont)
Intrinsic Beauty (cont)
Art Uncovered highlights the efforts of researchers and archivists regarding the study of textiles, including memorable findings along with notes, letters and photos taken during and about the research process. This included unreleased photos of Earthwatch Ecuador, a project in the late 1980s which documented traditional textile practices and dress of Indigenous Ecuadorians.
Textile 101 was incredible, giving both a visual and tactile way to engage with and learn more about the basic properties of textiles - fiber, structure, color and decoration. I have an interest in construction of clothes (the two wolves of "geometry enthusiast" and "clothes horse" intersecting), and so it was really nice to see the differences between materials, and the methods of combining, coloring and decorating fabrics for use that I'd only known about abstractly.
Textile 101 (cont)
Textiles 101 (cont)
fabric samples in order are: mud cloth, embroidery, canvas with applique (front/back), shibori (front/back), and batik
Thanks a lot for posting these!
oooh this exhibit looks so fun. the met cloisters had a small section on medieval dyes with examples which i had found the most interesting part of the museum. and this is way more!!!!!
This looks soo cool. TYSM for sharing.
this was so fun bordering on overstimulating but the reasons to visit the met soon keep increasing ❤️
wow my sister goes there, i’ll go check it out when i visit her. looks really cool