The Barbican is hosting a rather good exhibition about weaving and tapestry titled “Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art.” The Barbican website outlines the event on their website with the following description:
“Using textiles, fibre and thread, 50 international artists challenge power structures and reimagine the world in this major group exhibition.
Textiles cover and protect us, engage our senses, trigger our memories, represent our beliefs, hold our stories. We are wrapped in cloth when we’re born and enshrouded in it when we die.
As an artistic medium, textiles can speak to the joys and pains of being human, as well as the larger structures and systems that shape our world.
In this major group exhibition, 50 international, intergenerational artists use textiles to communicate vital ideas about power, resistance and survival. From intimate hand-crafted pieces to monumental sculptural installations, these works offer narratives of violence, imperialism and exclusion alongside stories of resilience, love and hope.”
So far, so woke. The exhibition has received glowing reviews from publications such as The Guardian, The Times and The Evening Standard. What could possibly go wrong?
The Barbican Centre, Wikimedia Commons.
Regrettably, it has all “unravelled” for the Barbican. After the cancellation of a talk titled: “The Shoah after Gaza” by the Indian writer Pankaj Misra, that was supposed to be jointly hosted by the London Review of Books, where it appears the Barbican got cold feet, a number of artists have withdrawn their works in a fit of pique. Or perhaps it should be called solidarity. One of the representatives of an artist who withdrew work on display said it was “enacted in the spirit of the artists included in the exhibition, many of whom were compelled to weave and sew and stich and make as a response to repressive regimes and systems of power.”
The Barbican issued this apology along with the standard trigger warnings:
Content note
“Please be advised that some works in this exhibition contain nudity, some works contain references to forms of systemic violence including police brutality, sexual violence, colonialism, racism and the transatlantic slave trade. Please ask at the ticket desk for more information.
Update: works on display
Several works have been withdrawn as an act of solidarity with Palestine in response to the Barbican’s decision not to host the London Review of Books (LRB) Winter Lecture Series. We respect the decisions of the artists and lenders involved and you can read our statement on this here. The below list of participating artists shows the artists whose works have been withdrawn.”
The People’s Front of Judea have seriously offended the Judean People’s Front.
March 2024.
Art history Unchained. 