You can weave it. Sew it. Crochet it. Quilt it. Paint it. Print it. Braid it. Dress in it. Sleep in it. Make it out of natural fibers or clay or metal or paper. Or even out of milk and dirt.
Forget what you know about textiles. “To Weave the Sky: Textile Abstractions from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection” at El Espacio 23, a contemporary art space in Allapattah, pushes the medium’s boundaries. The new exhibition opens Nov. 2.
El Espacio 23 is a 28,000-square-foot warehouse-turned-gallery space and artist residency program that features works from the collection of Jorge Pérez, the real estate mogul and art collector. Many of the works in the show have never been exhibited before.
“Art will always serve as a universal language that helps bridge cultures and brings people together,” Pérez said in a statement. “Textile works in particular open up a unique window into many diverse traditions, showing how everyday materials and timeless craftsmanship can come together to inspire new, unique methods of creative expression.”
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“To Weave the Sky,” the space’s fourth exhibition, was a pet project for Pérez collection curator Patricia Hanna over the last decade, she said. That was when the Pérez collection began acquiring textile artworks, specifically by five artists who are featured in the show: Olga de Amaral, Robert Motherwell, Polly Apfelbaum, Frances Trombly and Ximena Garrido-Lecca. The exhibition features almost 140 works by over 100 artists from around the world.
The show, which places textile works alongside sculptures, paintings, photos and installations, was curated by Mexico City-based curator Tobias Ostrander, who worked closely with Hanna and Anelys Alvarez, another Pérez collection curator.
Unlike previous El Espacio 23 exhibitions, such as the most recent show on Cuban diaspora art, “To Weave the Sky” focuses on a specific medium instead of a particular region. Textiles are much more than patterned blankets, clothes and crochet trinkets. The medium is a human tradition that has kept mankind’s ancestors sheltered, clothed, warm and busy for millennia.
“With art, we’re in a hurry. We’re looking, we’re looking, we’re looking at paintings and sculpture, but when it comes to textiles, I think it makes you pause a little bit,” Hanna said. “They have a meditative quality, right? You admire the process. You admire the technique. You question how it’s made. Every piece has a story.”
Take “Tejida abstraccion (Cuadrados)“ by Spanish artist Teresa Lanceta as an example. The woven wool and cotton artwork is an uneven series of red, black and yellow squares and rectangles, almost as if the pattern is glitching. Lanceta traveled to North Africa and embedded herself within local communities to learn how to weave in this way, Hanna said.
“We also realize the collaborative spirit of textiles,” she said. “A lot of them are made in conjunction with other artists, in conjunction with communities or traditions that are passed down from generations. We were very drawn to how it brings people together.”
For many artworks in the show, the process the artist took to make the piece is just as interesting as the final product itself.
Summer Wheat, a Los Angeles-based artist, hangs up a mesh material in her studio and pushes acrylic paint through its small holes to create an image on the other side. Her neon-colored piece, called “Different Shapes and Sizes,” shows people of all shapes and sizes fitting together like puzzle pieces.
“She’s really the only artist we’ve ever seen making art like this,” Hanna said.
The show is replete with unique artworks by familiar names and emerging talents. Art aficionados will immediately recognize one of Nick Cave’s “soundsuits,” a mannequin dressed head to toe in a fabric ensemble elaborately decorated with beads and funky materials.
In another room, something that looks like a long rainbow magic carpet hangs from the ceiling onto the floor. It’s actually strips of paper that artist Daniela Libertad weaved together. The colorful geometric pattern was done with colored pencils.
Also hanging from the ceiling in another room is a striking sculpture by Colombian artist Juliana Gongora. At first glance, it’s reminiscent of the spine of a whale skeleton. In reality, “Techo de leche y tierra” is made from a natural material called cabuya fibre and 93 sticks coated in dirt and milk. Nearby, what appears to be a rug that is not meant to be stepped on lies on the floor. The work, made of reeds and bronze, resembles the wavy surface of water.
“Recuento” by Cuban artist Elizabet Cervino hangs from the wall and pools onto the floor. The massive artwork, which was partially completed at El Espacio 23 when Cervino was a resident, consists of several cords of natural hemp fibers. The story behind it is “extremely poetic,” Hanna said.
There was a time when the Castro regime propped up hemp as a “savior crop” that would be as relevant to Cuba’s economy as sugar. But hemp wasn’t the next big thing Castro thought it was. Still, hemp fields remain in the Mantanzas region. That’s where Cervino gathers her materials to twirl and braid together. The materials’ soft pink and red hues are all natural.
Cervino explained that the intense process that the plant itself goes through is similar to the human condition.
“You dehydrate it, you get the leaves, you strip them, you take them apart and you stretch them and you dry them and you tie them and you create something else from them,” Hanna said. “For her, that whole process of doing that to a plant is kind of reminiscent of going through life as a person.”
While this exhibition may not be as politically charged as previous shows, the sections on the second floor dive into textile’s unbreakable association with gender, race and social issues.
“Mobile Madonna” by Bisa Butler, an African-American artist known for her innovative style of quilting, is a portrait of a Black woman holding a baby. The 2022 work was based on an image taken by prominent African American photojournalist Gordon Parks, who used his photography to combat racism.
“Mr. Gordon Parks used a camera to fight what he hated the most and I use my sewing machine and fabric,” Butler wrote in an Instagram post about the piece.
Nearby are two pieces by Mexican artist Tania Candiani: one blood red, the other jet black. Candiani recreated photographs of female protesters in Mexico and the Philippines by sewing thread into canvas. The artist turns the “domestic reference” of stitching into a symbol of power, Hanna said.
A work by Carlos Castro of Colombia touches on power, too. A medieval European-style tapestry depicts a mythologized version of Pablo Escobar’s infamous “Hacienda.” In the satirical piece, Escobar is surrounded by loyal servants, a prop plane and magical beasts, including a unicorn.
Though textiles are a centuries-old medium, Hanna said this exhibition shows how much creativity there still is for artists to explore. The biggest takeaway from the show is “the potential of the medium,” she said.
“We want the show to be beautiful, which we hope it is,” she said, as she walked past a sprawling deep blue crocheted curtain. “There’s also a lot more to be said beyond the sheer beauty of the pieces.”
To Weave The Sky: Textile Abstractions from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection
Where: El Espacio 23, 2270 NW 23rd St.
When: On view starting Nov. 2
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday to Saturday
Info: Free admission. Exhibition viewings by appointment only. elespacio23.org/visit/
This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work. This story was originally published October 25, 2023, 12:17 PM.
