Yee I-Lann @ Kunstmuseum Thun - "Mansau-Ansau" Exhibition

Yee I-Lann

MANSAU-ANSAU

Kunstmuseum Thun

23 August - 30 November 2025

Yee I-Lann 

Photograph by Wee Seng

Yee I-Lann 

TIKAR MEJA PLASTIK’ (2023) Detail

Woven by Aisyah Binti Ebrahim, Alisyah Binti Ebrahim, 

Ardih Binti Belasani, Dayang Binti Tularan, Darwisa

Binti Omar, Dela Binti Aniratih, Endik Binti Arpid, Erna, 

Fazlan Bin Tularan, Kinnuhong Gundasali, Kouh, Luisa

Binti Ebrahim, Makcik Lukkop Belatan, Malaya Binti Anggah, 

Ninna Binti Mursid, Noraidah Jabarah (Kak Budi),

Roziah Binti Jalalid, Sabiyana Binti Belasani, Sanah Belasani, 

Makcik Siti Aturdaya, Tasya binti Tularan and

Venice Foo Chau Xhien

Pandaus fabric, chemical dye, collected plastic waste

Variable format

Artist’s Collection

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Yee I-Lann 

Sulu Stories: The Ch’i-lin of Calauit, 2005

Archival pigment inkjet on Epson Premium Photo Luster

60.9 x 60.9 cm

Collection of Singapore Art Museum

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

MANSAU-ANSAU at the Kunstmuseum Thun is the first major exhibition in Europe devoted to the work of YEE I-LANN. The multidisciplinary Malaysian artist explores traditional arts and crafts from a contemporary vantage point, delving into the narratives of her homeland and addressing the influences of colonialism and the persistence of Indigenous heritage and communities today.

Walking on and on, without a clear destination – this is an approximate translation of MANSAU-ANSAU from the language of the Indigenous Kadazan and Dusun tribes in Yee I-Lann’s homeland of Sabah, Malaysia. The notion of this venturing into the unknown can be frightening, as there is always the risk of getting lost. But it offers an equal chance of discovering something new. The travelling exhibition, shown at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) from 24 December to 25 March and on view at the Kunstmuseum Thun starting 23 August, sheds light on issues involving art and colonialism from a fresh point of view.

The centrepiece of MANSAU-ANSAU is a mat woven from bamboo that forms the basis for people to sit down and commune together. The mat symbolises a space for intimacy and, in the artist’s view, offers a platform for local, democratic, feminist and social equality. “The mat is a place for storytelling and a way to discover new knowledge,” says Yee I-Lann.

In a broader context, Yee I-Lann (b. 1971, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo) examines in her work the complex geopolitical history of Southeast Asia. Working closely with a collective of women weavers from her homeland gives the artist a way to expose oppression using art and craft. In addition to textiles, the exhibition also features photographs, video works and sculptures dealing with themes such as collective reorganisation, realignment and imagination as strategies for the personal and collective future.

Yee I-Lann has ties to Switzerland: her great-granduncle was a mountaineer in Zermatt at the turn of the last century and was buried in the cemetery there after a fatal fall. The fact that she is presenting her first major European exhibition in Thun, in an environment that displays “similar forms and a similar strength” to her homeland, is the result of a chance discovery. Helen Hirsch, Director of the Kunstmuseum Thun and curator of the exhibition, became aware of the Malaysian artist at Art Unlimited in Basel in 2022. “I was captivated by her independent, multidisciplinary and multi-layered form of expression and her respectful attitude towards the local communities she works with,” says Helen Hirsch. Yee I-Lann always makes sure to include the names of the weavers on the labels for her works, something that distinguishes her from many other artists who have their textile works woven anonymously, for example in Morocco or South America. “She collaborates with the weavers on an equal basis.”

Yee I-Lann 

A map of Mansau-Ansau, 2024 (Detail)

Woven by Lili Naming and Shahrizan Bin Juin

Split bamboo pus (Schizostachyum pilosum S.Dransf.) weave, 

Multifilla Matt Sealant, 91 x 183 cm

Artist’s Collection

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Yee I-Lann

Installation view of Yee I-Lann’s Picturing Power (2013) 

Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, Ultra Smooth Fine Art

Variable format

Collection of Singapore Art Museum

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

The exhibition includes works from the Singapore Art Museum’s collection, including early photo collage series (Sulu Stories [2005], Picturing Power [2013]) as well as a range of woven works, from batik on silk (Orang Besar series [2010]) to split bamboo (Tepo Putih [2019], Tika-a-gagah [2018-19]). Yee I-Lann’s commitment to deconstructing relationships and her incorporation of diverse symbols and aesthetics is evident in works that transcend time and media. All the while, however, her oeuvre is distinctly rooted in material and communal realities, especially those of Indigenous peoples.

Curator: Helen Hirsch, in collaboration with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM)

KUNSTMUSEUM THUN

Thunerhof, Hofstettenstrasse 14, 3602 Thun

www.kunstmuseumthun.ch

Julia Bland @ The Aldrich, Ridgefield - "Woven in the Reeds" Exhibition

Julia Bland: Woven in the Reeds 

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield

May 15 - September 14, 2025.

JULIA BLAND

Helper (detail), 2024 

Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York 

Photo: Adam Reich

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum announced JULIA BAND’s first solo museum presentation, Woven in the Reeds. Bland’s installation is part of Aldrich Projects, a quarterly series featuring one work or a focused body of work by a single artist on the Museum’s campus. Julia Bland debuts a monumental tapestry composed of canvas, ropes, linen nets, and fabrics that are dyed, woven, braided, tied, and sewn by hand. 

Bland grew up in Palo Alto, California, in the shadow of the counterculture movement of the 1960s–70s, and in the nascent stages of technological utopianism. Raised by parents with different religious backgrounds—her mother is Jewish, and her father is a Presbyterian minister—Bland’s upbringing was marked by a blend of spiritual influences. In 2008, she was awarded a fellowship to work in Morocco, where she lived on and off for several years. During this time, she studied Sufism and immersed herself in the country’s rich customs, materials, and craftsmanship.

Informed by these personal experiences, Bland’s textiles reflect a synthesis of visual cultures across time and place. Her work blends the tie-dyed, kaleidoscopic imagery of psychedelia with sacred Islamic geometry and Judeo-Christian symbols. Bland’s meticulous layering, diverse materials, and intricate fiber techniques result in compositions that exude rhythmic intensity and devotional energy, evoking the mystical abstractions of transcendentalist painters like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz.

The confluence of openwork netting and solid patches of material coalesce at certain points to form distinct shapes while dissolving into others, depending on the viewer’s perception. In this way, Julia Bland references the Shifting Gestalt Effect, an optical phenomenon that emphasizes the whole of patterns and objects over their individual elements. One image that may emerge is the “priestly hands,” a powerful religious symbol from ancient Judeo-Christian traditions representing divine protection. The work’s title, Woven in the Reeds, refers both to Judaism, where reeds are valued for their flexibility and strength and used for writing the Torah, and to Sufism, where—as the artist explains—“The song of the reed flute laments its separation from the reed bed, and is a frequent metaphor for the longing for God.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a ‘zine.

JULIA BLAND (b. 1986, Palo Alto, CA) received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MDA from The Yale School of Art. She has been an artist in residence at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lighthouse Works, The Sharpe-Walentas Space Program, and The Shandaken Project: Storm King. She has received awards including The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, The Milton and Sally Avery Fellowship from Yaddo, The Carol Schlosberg Memorial Prize, NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture, The Florence Leif Award for Excellence in Painting, and the Natasha and Jacques Gelman Travel Fellowship. Recent solo exhibitions include Rivers on the Inside, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY; Embers, Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole, WY; Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; The Lighthouse Works, Fisher’s Island, NY; Helena Anrather, New York, NY; and On Stellar Rays, New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include The Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY; The Swedish Institute in Paris, France; The Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI; Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, China; and Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY. Julia Bland lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Aldrich Projects | Julia Bland: Woven in the Reeds is curated by Curatorial and Publications Manager Caitlin Monachino.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

258 Main Street Ridgefield, CT 06877

www.thealdrich.org

Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction @ MoMA, New York

Woven Histories:

Textiles and Modern Abstraction 

MoMA, New York 

April 20 — September 13, 2025 

Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) 

Weaving 89/21 (Tejedura 89/21), 1989 

Cut-and-woven paper, 9 × 8″ (22.9 × 20.3 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 

Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through 

the Latin American and Caribbean Fund 

in honor of Jeanne Collins 

© 2024 Fundación Gego

Ed Rossbach 

Constructed Color Wall Hanging, 1965 

Synthetic raffia, 57 x 71″ (144.8 x 180.3 cm) 

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Emery Fund

Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt) 

Weaving 90/36, 1990 

Pencil on cut paper woven with plastic packaging, 

6 1/4 × 5″ (15.9 × 12.7 cm)

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 

Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through 

the Latin American and Caribbean Fund 

in honor of Patty Lipshutz 

© 2024 Fundación Gego

The Museum of Modern Art presents Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, an in-depth exhibition that delves into the dynamic intersections between weaving and abstraction. The exhibition includes approximately 150 works in a range of mediums—from textiles and basketry to painting, drawing, sculpture, and media works—exploring the overlap between abstract art, weaving, craft, and fashion. Woven Histories challenges long-held notions of the weave as a function of textile alone, exploring the many forms both warp and weft have taken when explored by abstract artists over the past 100 years. 

Previously on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the exhibition’s final presentation is at MoMA, with numerous works not seen at earlier venues.

Unfolding chronologically, Woven Histories begins with works by pioneering artists of the early 20th century whose explorations in textile transformed the scope of modern art. Highlighting MoMA’s substantial holdings from the period, the show’s final iteration exclusively features Gunta Stolzl’s "Wall Hanging" (1924), and an expanded selection of work by Anni Albers, including her historic "Free-Hanging Room Dividers" (c. 1940). More recent works by such artists as Igshaan Adams, Rosemarie Trockel, and Andrea Zittel reveal common threads between this expanded history of abstract art and contemporary practice. Highlighting issues of labor and identity that are intertwined with modern textile production, Woven Histories posits weaving and textiles as the quintessential link between lived experience and art, as explored in works by Diedrick Brackens, Liz Collins, Jeffrey Gibson, and Laura Huertas Millán.

Inspired by contemporary artists’ interest in, and engagement with, both traditional and avant-garde weaving practices, Woven Histories hinges on key historical moments during which these intersections are clearest, from the early 20th century, through the postwar moment, and continuing today. Many of the included artists have work on view at MoMA for the first time, including Shan Goshorn, Yvonne Koolmatrie, Ellen Lesperance, Carole Frances Lung, and Marilou Schultz. Woven Histories expands the notion of the development of abstraction from its earliest days, challenging its status as a solely conceptual and formalist framework by suggesting that its materiality—found in woven, knotted, and braided fabric—is equally critical to its understanding and success.

Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. The exhibition is curated by Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art. The Museum of Modern Art presentation is organized by Esther Adler, Curator, with Emily Olek, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawing and Prints, and Paul Galloway, Collection Specialist, Department of Architecture and Design.

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART - MoMA, NEW YORK

www.moma.org

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