In 1962, when Jean Lurcat roped in fifty-seven artists from seventeen countries for Lausanne's first Biennale de la Tapisserie, critics wondered how a show of tapestry could be held every two years. Weaving being a notably slow process, could artists meet a deadline every two years and renew their art at such a pace? Fourteen Biennales later, the organizers who have seen fiber art energized by the brilliant silk and wool cascades of Sheila Hicks, the provocative, all-enveloping wool sculptures of Magdalena Abakanowicz, the monumental rope structures of Aurelia Munoz, or the rugged textile murals of Jagoda Buic continue to wonder. What challenge remains?
"Each time, our nightmare is to have nothing to show," says Diana de Rham, who, as executive secretary of the International Center of Modern and Ancient Tapestry, has set up the last three Biennales. "But, when the jury met last November to review the entries, we realized how great the legacy is of the early artists, how much it has stimulated others." Lausanne's successive Biennales have chronicled the evolution from tapestry to fiber art. The fourteenth--no set theme, no holds barred--arrives "après" heroics with freewheeling freedom and confidence.
Solid Quality
Has fiber art simply come of age? Erika Billeter, a member of the jury and head of the spacious Musee des Beaux Arts where the show takes place, calls this "a Biennale of solid quality: no great surprises, no exceptional explosiveness, yet some unexpected revelations." With Billeter, a jury that included sculptor Peter Jacobi, fiber artist Gerhardt Knodel, textile industrialist Jorg Baumann, and the curator of the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum, Barbara Mundt, 805 entries were weeded from 47 countries. A ruthless selection retained only 29. Somewhat like the organizers the works are cool, competent, and elegant.
Americans and Japanese have run away with this year's show. "There are fewer and fewer European artists from one Biennale to the next," comments de Rham ruefully. "Not one Swiss was admitted despite fifty-nine entries form this country." She blames this on general indifference and lack of support for fiber artists in Switzerland. "In the U.S., specialized magazines, schools, grants, and an active aruistic network have done as much as concern for the environment and a renewed interest in manual arts to sustain creative artists. In Japan, the state and the textile industry actively backs them. Even other Asiatic countries like Korea--here for the first time--show similar enthusiasm."
Two-thirds of the exhibitors are newcomers, one-third have shown here before. "Our rules are inflexible; to come back there must be evidence of artistic growth and reflection." De Rham believes this is spectacularly illustrated by Rebecca Medel. Here for the third time, the artist from Long Beach, California, has stretched ren tows of ikat-dyed nets across a wide room.
A Thousand Faces
"For two years, I knotted and knotted and knotted," laughs Medel, who finished the seventy-nine panels only two weeks before the Biennale. "The idea for 1000 Kannons came from a visit to a Kyoto temple, Sansusangendo. I was fascinated by the alignment of a thousand and one statues. To interpret it into my own work, I saw I needed a
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