Olga de Amaral @ MFAH, Houston & Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills - To Weave a Rock

Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

July 25 - September 19, 2021

OLGA DE AMARAL

Brumas (Mists), 2013

Acrylic, gesso, and cotton on wood

Courtesy of the artist

© Olga de Amaral / Photograph © Diego Amaral

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock, the first major touring retrospective of the prolific, visionary Colombian artist whose pioneering visual language has helped to transform the fiber arts movement. Co-organized by the MFAH and the Cranbrook Art Museum, the exhibition traces Olga de Amaral’s architectural investigations of the woven form through some 50 works created during the past six decades, ranging from her early Muros (Walls) series to the more recent immersive installation Brumas (Mists).

“This retrospective allows audiences to see the six decades of my work side by side for the first time,” Olga de Amaral said. “To have it open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a great honor, as they hold leading collections in both decorative arts and Latin American art in the United States. The exhibition was also co-created with Cranbrook Art Museum, the museum of my alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is such an important part of my creative history and where I met my husband, the artist Jim Amaral. This retrospective and publication have been years in the making, and I feel they are a wonderful showcase of my life’s work.” 

An “alchemist artist,” Olga de Amaral has experimented radically with material, composition, and space, transforming flat-woven tapestries into forms that defy the confines of any genre or medium. Co-curators Anna Walker, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the MFAH; and Laura Mott, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design at Cranbrook Art Museum, chronicle Amaral’s career through four thematic sections: “Radical Materialism,” “Rebel Warp,” “Alchemy,” and “The Line.” They also devote two galleries to the artist’s immersive Brumas (Mists) and Estelas (Stele) series.

“Olga de Amaral is a leading figure who continues to push the boundaries of the fiber arts movement. Deeply rooted in her Colombian heritage and architectural training, Amaral’s sculptures command our attention with their exploration of color, texture, and structure,” said Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, MFAH. “We are delighted to partner with the Cranbrook Art Museum to present this comprehensive survey and highlight Amaral as a seminal artist of the last 60 years.”

“Amaral has developed a language all her own within the fiber arts movement through experimentation with the loom and her transformational use of materials,” Walker said. “The MFAH has established the most comprehensive collection of her work in North America. It’s a thrill to present these works alongside other important examples that exemplify her creative spirit.”

Exhibition Overview

After earning an architectural drafting degree in her native Bogotá, Colombia, Olga de Amaral (born 1932) attended the fabric and design weaving program at Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art in the mid-1950s. There, she studied under the renowned Marianne Strengell, who emphasized textile design’s relationship with interior space and its use as an architectural material. When she returned home, Amaral applied Strengell’s philosophies to woven works that also were informed by her environment.

• “Radical Materialism” explores Olga de Amaral’s unconventional use of horsehair, wool, gold leaf, plastics, and other materials that reflect the landscape and culture of Colombia while also utilizing texture, color, and light to create dimensionality and structure. A notable example, the Luz (Light) series from the mid-to-late 1960s, features tapestries of cascading, layered polyurethane that depict water flowing across the Colombian terrain.

• The “Rebel Warp” section illustrates how Olga de Amaral has investigated scale and challenged traditional weaving traditions with innovative plaiting, wrapping, coiling, and warp manipulation. The parallel rods of her groundbreaking series Muros tejidos (Woven Walls) support vertical, lattice-like loops to form distinct structures and shapes; principles she also applied to free-standing sculptures such as Columna en pasteles (Column in Pastels) (1972).

• Embracing the spiritual significance of gold in Colombian culture, Olga de Amaral has made gold leaf a signature material. The “Alchemy” section presents selections from Alquimia (Alchemy), her acclaimed 1980s series of wall-hung tapestries composed of individually woven linen squares lacquered with gesso and gold leaf. Also especially notable are works from Amaral’s immersive series Estelas (Stele), whose suspended structures evoke upright stones.

• The works of “The Line” section incorporate painted, free-hanging threads. Highlights include pieces from the Nudo (Knot) series, whose long, loose linen fibers anchored with knots resemble monumental, draped tassels of magenta, turquoise, and gold. Another work, Agujero Negro (Black Hole) (2016) initially suggests a black void painted on gray fringe, but as viewers pass by, threads waft to reveal a sliver of gold paint that glimmers like sunlight. The immersive Brumas (Mists) (2013), a series of three-dimensional, suspended forms, engulfs viewers in vibrant colors and geometric shapes.

OLGA DE AMARAL

ToWeave a Rock

Exhibition Catalogue

Publication: This exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock, authored by co-curators Laura Mott and Anna Walker and co-published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Arnoldsche Art Publishers. 

Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Cranbrook Art Museum. After Houston it will traveling to the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in October 2021.

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON - MFAH

1001 Bissonnet, Houston, Texas 77005

www.mfah.org

Cranbrook Art Museum: Grand Reopening Exhibition No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection

No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection

Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills

November 11, 2011 - March 25, 2012

The first Exhibition in the Newly Renovated and Expanded Museum Explores Cranbrook’s Continued Influence in the World of Contemporary Art and Design. No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection will pair the work of 50 leading contemporary artists and designers with an equal number of objects from Cranbrook’s outstanding permanent collection of 20th- and 21st-century art and design. Visitors will discover a Nick Cave Soundsuit side-by-side with a tapestry by Arts and Crafts master May Morris. A conceptual partnership that Maarten Baas projects between himself and Marc Newson meets a very real early collaboration of Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames. And Whitney Biennalist Tony Mattelli’s hyperrealist sculpture, The Hunter, faces off with one of fellow sculptor Kate Clark’s ravishing taxidermy beasts with a human face.

The pairings reinstate the challenging dialogue that has characterized Cranbrook since the revolutionary graduate school and museum opened more than 80 years ago. In so doing, No Object is an Island is an analog for Cranbrook Art Museum itself, the renovation of which transcends common notions of museum practice. For Director Gregory Wittkopp, who has guided the museum as its curator or director for 26 years, No Object is an Island is an opportunity to showcase a cross-section of the museum’s permanent collection—including numerous recent “never-before-seen” acquisitions—while also demonstrating its continued relevancy to contemporary practitioners. “At a moment when most museums would simply trot out their 100 greatest hits, Cranbrook will use its collection to challenge and inspire a new generation of artists and designers and other museum visitors,” says Wittkopp. “While the 20th-century museum saw its mission as preservation, we are leading the charge of 21st-century museums to educate through objects.”

Often called the American Bauhaus, Cranbrook Academy of Art has long been hailed for its prescient embrace of interdisciplinary art and design education. No Object is an Island and the enhanced museum will embody and update that tradition. Nowhere is this more evident than in the exhibition’s unexpected pairings, such as that of Cranbrook’s legendary designer, Harry Bertoia and contemporary metalsmith Dorothea Pruhl. Here we find Bertoia working not at the expected scale of his iconic furniture or Sound Sculptures but as a jeweler, next to one of Europe’s most influential craftswomen. Or the dialogue between Asymptote Architecture and Eero Saarinen, both of whom have helped redefine the form of architecture and how we model it. In the case of Asymptote, visitors will see a “fly-through” projection of their award winning, 2011 YAS Hotel in Dubai next to a rare original model of Saarinen’s structurally daring Dulles International Airport. Separated by half a century of thought and technology, both buildings nevertheless share a tradition of radical form-making (and advanced technology) that are characteristic of Cranbrook’s leading role in contemporary architecture.

No Object is an Island is organized around six themes—Craft, Site, Comfort, Resistance, Process, and Fiction– each of which connotes a period of innovation at Cranbrook Academy of Art and presents a body of work that suggests common points of departure in the pursuit of creative expression and original art. While “Craft,” for example, reflects the important role that Cranbrook’s founder George Booth played in shaping the American Arts and Crafts movement (giving it physical form through the architecture and collections of Cranbrook), “Process” explores the work of contemporary artists who give physical form to the activity of making. “Comfort” suggests both the Academy’s role as the cradle of mid-century modernism, as well as the work of contemporary designers who are continuing to challenge and redefine the nature of domestic and work environments. The themes of “No Object” are by no means exhaustive; nor are they meant to be prescriptive. Instead, they offer a starting point for exploring the remarkable influence Cranbrook has had on contemporary creative culture.

No Object is an Island will open on 11-11-11 in conjunction with an eleven-day program of events, lectures, films and performances—during which the museum will be open 11 hours each day—and will run through March 25, 2012. This is the first of many exhibitions that will build on Cranbrook Art Museum’s mission to bridge visual art and design, scholarship and accessibility, tradition and innovation in its programs, and in so doing, document the ongoing creative achievements of the faculty and alumni of Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Curators: Gregory Wittkopp, Director of Cranbrook Art Museum, and Sarah Margolis-Pineo, the Art Museum’s Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow, are the co-curators of No Object is an Island.

Publication: Cranbrook Art Museum will publish a fully illustrated catalog in conjunction with this exhibition. The catalog will include an introductory essay by Gregory Wittkopp with section essays by Emily Zilber (Craft), Jana Cephas (Site), Reed Kroloff (Comfort), Sarah Margolis-Pineo (Resistance), Sarah Turner (Process), and Christopher Ho (Fiction).

CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI

Cranbrook Academy of Art

www.cranbrookart.edu

Cranbrook Academy Art Museum: History, Renovation and Expansion

HISTORY OF CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND ART MUSEUM, "AMERICA'S BAUHAUS"

Founded by newspaper magnate George Gough Booth and his wife Ellen Scripps Booth, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum represent an ongoing educational experiment that the whole Cranbrook Educational Community embodies—"an original and radical plan to integrate all the arts in a perfect ensemble," according to Museum Director Gregory Wittkopp.

Cranbrook Academy of Art has been described as "America's Bauhaus," in recognition of the singular impact the school – one of the nation's leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design – has as a place of artistic creation. Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, Ralph Rapson, and Eero Saarinen created mid-century modernism at Cranbrook. Michael and Katherine McCoy started Product Semantics at the school. Daniel Libeskind, Jun Kaneko, Hani Rashid, Nick Cave, Richard De Vore, Tony Matelli, Niels Diffrient, Ed Fella, John Glick, Duane Hanson, Jack Lenor Larsen, and Lorraine Wild all studied or taught at Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Today, the Academy graduates more than 70 young artists and designers each year. The school's faculty of ten Artists-in-Residence are award-winning practitioners in their fields with work exhibited at some the world's most distinguished venues, including the Venice Biennale, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, The American Academy of Arts, and many others.

Reed Kroloff, Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, says, "People may not realize it, but Cranbrook art and design is everywhere. Whether you're sitting in an Eames office chair or riding in a new subway car in New York City, you are experiencing design by Cranbrook graduates [Antenna Design, which created the most recent subway cars, is co-directed by Masamichi Udagawa, a Cranbrook graduate]. The impact of this school on American life is ongoing and profound."

The Art Museum represents the culmination of Booth's plan. The Museum's collection of art and objects includes sculpture, paintings, models and drawings, ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles, and metalwork, and it is renowned for its variety – with the decorative, applied and fine arts all represented–its depth, and its unrivaled quality. Among the many treasures owned by Cranbrook Art Museum are works by Agnes Martin, Donald Judd, Bridget Riley, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Maija Grotell, Peter Voulkos, Eliel, Eero, Loja and Pipsan Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll, Marianne Strengell, Marshall Fredericks, Carl Milles, Arthur Neville Kirk, Paul Manship, and William Morris.

CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND ART MUSEUM: RENOVATION AND EXPANSION

Designed originally by Eliel and Eero Saarinen (with later buildings by Steven Holl, Lake/Flato, Rafael Moneo, Peter Rose, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien), Cranbrook is a National Historic Landmark, located on 320 acres of rolling, wooded landscape approximately 18 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. And, on a campus famous for its architecture, Cranbrook Art Museum is considered one of Eliel Saarinen's masterpieces.

The complete renovation and expansion accomplishes two things, according to Museum Director Wittkopp. "On a fundamental level, we are making a commitment to the infrastructure of the museum by raising Saarinen's masterwork to the standards of 21st-century museum practice, in terms of mechanical systems, lighting, communications, and other technology," he says. "But Cranbrook is, ultimately, a community where art and life are inextricably linked, and we believe that a museum and its collections are important only if they can continue to inspire new generations of artists." To that end, and in keeping with Cranbrook's tradition as a center of educational innovation, the new Collections Wing creates a model that is unprecedented: a museum whose collections in their entirety are visible and accessible. "The Academy has always seen the collection as a critical component of our pedagogy," explains Kroloff. "So we decided early on to create a very different kind of environment for viewing it. Instead of seeing only the fraction of the collection that most museums offer, our students, faculty, and visitors will have access to all 6,000 objects in a way that's never been possible before. Cranbrook Art Museum and its collections will be an integrated teaching environment like no other."

In order to accommodate this program, the building project encompassed two primary aspects: renovating and restoring the original Saarinen museum, and adding the 20,000-square-foot Collections Wing, where much of the collection will be displayed. Creating a conservation environment within the existing building required substantial improvements to achieve current standards for lighting, temperature, and humidity. Restoration of the Saarinen building also included a new roof, windows, and brick repair, as well as the disassembly and rebuilding of the building's famed plazas and ceremonial exterior stairs, which will now include a snow melting system that eliminates the need for destructive winter salting. An original Saarinen-designed coffered gallery lighting system (believed to be the first of its kind, and the forerunner of Eero Saarinen's revolutionary integrated lighting systems at the nearby General Motors Technical Center) was also restored.

The new Collections Wing is located to the northeast of the historic Saarinen museum and houses the new, visible collections spaces, a woodshop, photography studio, loading dock, and a 10'x15' freight elevator to facilitate the transport of artworks within the building. A seminar/conference space is intended for focused instruction regarding the collection. The SmithGroup was the architect for both the restoration and the new building.

The $22 million-project at Cranbrook Art Museum was funded by Cranbrook Educational Community as one of several important restoration projects made possible by a recently completed $181 million Comprehensive Fundraising Campaign. Of this total, the Academy of Art and Art Museum raised nearly $46 million in annual and endowed support for programming, financial aid, faculty support, and new equipment. The $10 million lead gift to the Campaign was received from Maxine and Stuart Frankel and family.

After the two-year construction project Cranbrook Art Museum will reopen on 11-11-11.

CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI
Cranbrook Academy of Art
www.cranbrookart.edu