----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 7:43 AM
Subject: [5] Re: Appreciating art
Are tapestries important works of art?
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Chuck Close has been doing Jacquard Tapestries. Here is one he did of
Phillip Glass -
http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/Content/PressRelease/Magnolia_PR_Close_Glass.pdf
I revieiwed a show containing a Close self-portriat in a Tapestry about the
same size last year. To quote myself, I said, (in part)
.....Chuck Close, the most renowned and perhaps the most grateful of Day's
former students submitted the most imposing of these self-portraits. Close
is known primarily for his larger than life figures, including many
self-portraits. Close concentrates on the face, a person's most
distinguishing feature. Close often paints portraits by breaking the image
up into small grids. These small grids when viewed nose-to-canvas the way
museum viewers will examine technique appear as individual squares of
abstract design. When the viewer moves back, 10-20 feet from the painting,
what, up close, was indecipherable, becomes a photo-realistic face.
The Close piece on display at the Russell Day Gallery is similar in
approach, but presents an unusual medium. The 2006 work entitled "Self
Portrait" is a Jacquard Tapestry. Jacquard tapestries, while originally
hand made are now generally produced on finely detailed computerized looms
in Belgium. The warp of this tapestry is a heavy black material. The weft
consists of tiny, almost iridescent filaments in silver, blue, green, gold
and red.
This work plays on our notion of focus in at least four different ways.
Firstly, when the portrait is examined at arm's length in a micro-view all
that can be discerned are incoherent and energetic little strings that
randomly appear and then disappear. However, upon stepping back and taking a
macro-view, the order of the piece emerges and the snaps into focus. And,
while I may be straying here from artistic intention, I feel compelled to
share that I find this experience to be a near perfect representation of the
quantum-mechanical string-theory.
Secondly, even when the face does snap into focus, because of the narrow
depth-of-field, only the facial plane becomes clear. No matter where you
stand the ears, cheeks, neck and shoulders are always out of focus. Close
is only highlighting what we look to when we seek recognition in a face.
Focus is selective.
Thirdly, the figure's eyes are scrutinizingly focused on the viewer as the
act of visual inquiry becomes reciprocal. And, lastly, the portrait of
Close shows him wearing glasses low on his nose so that when approaching
this Titan of an image you cannot help but feel raised into presence by the
magnifying effect of his readers." .....
++++++++++++++++++
My sister is a fabric artist who participated in a recent group show in
Seattle. One of the other artists worked with Jacquard tapestries. While
these tapestries are dissimilar from the 16th-18th C. European tapestries in
your local exhibit, the medium seems alive, well and exhibited.
Mike Mallory
