Seaport Exhibit Offers Thread Assessment of Fabric Art Renaissance
A new art show, “The Golden Thread II: A Fiber Arts Exhibition,” now on display in the Seaport District at 207 Front Street celebrates the resurgence of interest in thread and textiles as a creative medium. Curated by art dealers Karin Bravin and John Lee, the Golden Thread II brings together more than 60 leading practitioners of fabric art.
Textile art – which includes embroidery, tapestry, quilting, carpet design, and many other forms – is emerging from the shadow of its more prominent siblings, painting and sculpture. This rise has been attested to by the twin barometers that the art world takes most seriously: shows in major museums (fabric art has been the focus of recent exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art) along with auction prices, which have lately climbed into the six and seven figures.
An essay accompanying the Golden Thread exhibit reflects, “as material, textiles are freighted with a tensile metaphorical language – one that mobilizes ideas of interlacing, interweaving and entanglement – thereby opening up new arenas of expression across cultures.”
The title of the show alludes to the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which the hero slipped into a labyrinth to slay the fearsome therianthrope. Presented with a golden thread by his beloved, Ariadne, he used the skein to mark a path that would enable him to find his way out again.
The space housing the Golden Thread II show is itself worth a visit: 207 Front Street was erected in 1797 as a shoreline warehouse (when that address was on the riverfront), with Flemish bond brickwork and a 12-foot metal and timber wheel in its attic, designed to lift cargo such as bales of cotton and bolts of fabric from the holds of ships into the building’s storerooms. That contraption, still in place, is incorporated into artist Tura Oliveira’s “Wheel of Fortune” installation, which depicts a giant creature, fashioned from silk and yarn, being mangled by the spokes of the wheel. This is among more than half a dozen works on display in Golden Thread II that were conceived by artists specifically to respond to the venue. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, 207 Front Street is only rarely open to the public.
The Golden Thread II: A Fiber Arts Exhibition is open Wednesdays to Sundays through May 16, from noon to 6pm, at 207 Front Street (between Fulton and Beekman Streets).