More on African Textile Shows and Dutch Wax Prints

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, African textiles are having a big, wonderful moment. There's more in today's New York Times. Here are the relevant links:

• "African Art, Modern and Traditional: Seductive Patterns from a Rich Palette." This is a good review of the Metropolitan Museum show and another show at NYU.
• There's also a beautiful slide show of work from the two exhibitions.
• The exhibition site for the  Metropolitan show, "The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End," is here. 
• Information on the exhibition at New York University's Grey Art Gallery, "The Poetics of Cloth: African Textiles, Recent Art" is here. 

One of the pieces that looks most intriguing in the slide show is by Rachid Koraichi, an Algerian artist now living in Paris, whose work "makes reference to the complex history and geography of indigo in large vertical banners filled with text from an eighth-century Sufi mystic." Though we associate indigo perhaps more with Japanese textiles, it's been used all over the world. 

Dutch wax prints are among the most accessible and lovely of African textile traditions, as they can be bought as yardage; while many African print fabrics available today are imitations, you can still buy authentic Dutch wax print fabric like these from Vlisco:

Comments

[Rebecca Amissah-Aidoo]

You might enjoy our textiles... www.AnanseVillage.com. We work with several training centers in West Africa which are teaching the traditional methods of batik and tye dye to men and women who then set up their own studio/workshop enterprises. We also have a nice selection of wax prints from ATL in Ghana.We are working hard to help maintain the production of African Fabric manufactured in Africa. (Not China, Pakistan or Europe)
Thanks for your attention to these beautiful graphic traditions.

[Judith]

The slide show is wonderful.My almost-daughter -in-law recently brought me back cloths from Malawi, printed in Tanzania. These were very much working quality, rather than fine fabrics, but lovely nonetheless.

[Heather]

I really like that second piece!