Textile and Tactile Surfaces
WARP
The history of art is marked with chance meetings and missed appointments. When Jean-Hubert Martin was preparing his famous exhibition Magiciens de la terre ([Earth’s Magicians], Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1989), which was to trigger the movement for the recognition of artists from countries and cultures outside Europe and the United States, it was doubtless still too soon for him to recognise Berber women weavers as genuine artists who deserved to be included in that panorama of world art. And indeed, they did not figure among the international artists of his exhibition1. But twenty-seven years later everything had changed. That rugs are works of art, that woven fabric is as important a medium as silicone or video, has become an article of faith, as is demonstrated by the recent flourishing of exhibitions in institutions that focus on contemporary artists: Tapis volants ([Flying Rugs], Rome, Villa Medici, 2012), Décorum (Paris, Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, 2013) or Marokkanische Teppiche und die Kunst der Moderne ([Moroccan Rugs and Modern Art], Munich, Die neue Sammlung-The International Design Museum, 2013). From this perspective, the exhibitions of work by Teresa Lanceta at Barcelona’s Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentatària (1989) and Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (2000) were forerunners, and the show at La Casa Encendida is highly topical. But what has changed in a quarter-century?
What has intervened is a profound theoretical shift whose outcome is the redefinition of the relationship between the decorative arts and the fine arts, long regarded as two opposite poles of creativity. This redefinition has taken the form of a deep reconsideration of ornament and a new appreciation for craft expertise. Authors such as Alois Riegl, long associated with the theory of formalism in art, but now read for his book on oriental rugs, have been rediscovered. That is also the case with Riegl’s master, Gottfried Semper, who is often studied by contemporary architects and theorists of architecture. Semper saw weaving not as something that follows architecture and is merely intended for decoration, but as the original architectural technique2. In his essays on “skilled practices”, the prominent contemporary anthropologist Tim Ingold even identified weaving as the model for creation in general3. The history of modern art has thus begun to be rewritten from the viewpoint of decoration and craft, rediscovering neglected artists and art movements such as Pattern and Decoration, the Californian group of women artists of which Miriam Schapiro is the best-known representative. In the early 1980s, these women argued that decoration and textile arts, seen as women’s work and consequently devalued by a long line of male artists and critics, should be reassessed and recognised as equal to other art forms4. The recent translation into French of American art critic Joseph Masheck’s 1978 essay The Carpet Paradigm, published shortly before this movement arose, is another symptom of these rediscoveries, as Masheck argued that the key concepts of modernist critical writing on painting–such as abstraction or flatness–first emerged in the context of debates about the decorative arts, especially rugs, during the late nineteenth century5. In this context, we could extend the rug-centred history of modern and contemporary art and distinguish four stages, from the late nineteenth century to the present:
1 The rug as a model for painters. From Delacroix, who is said to have declared that the most beautiful paintings he had ever seen were Persian rugs, to Frank Stella, who drew on them for inspiration in his paintings of the 1960s, by way of Matisse and Klee, many avant-garde painters have found in oriental rugs, whether Persian or Berber, a source of inspiration that enabled them to refresh their pictorial language, break away from illusionism, and assert the surface of the canvas.
2 The rug as a painting. Beginning in the 1960s, artists began to deconstruct the fundamental elements of art, and painters exhibited empty frames, stretchers, or unpainted canvases. From then on, anything rectangular which was hung on the wall could count as a painting. In this sense, the machine-knit paintings that Rosemarie Trockel created in the late 1980s, the adaptations of Mondrian paintings as fabric paintings made by Sylvie Fleury in the 1990s, or the complex compositions of Pascal Pinaud, incorporating patches of knitted or crocheted fabric in the 2000s, all demonstrate the desire to refresh the language of artistic creation by incorporating elements drawn from the so-called “low” culture (weaving) into its conventional format (the painting). However, these artists did not feel they needed to create these pieces of fabric themselves: their value lay primarily in the image.
3 The return of the handmade. During the last fifteen years or so, however, artists have begun to feel the urge to do hands-on work, and have discovered the joys and challenges of artisanal labour. The French duo Dewar and Gicquel is an emblematic example of this trend: their most recent exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, held in 2013, consisted entirely of giant handmade wool tapestries. Older artists are also being rediscovered, such as Sheila Hicks, one of the protagonists of the “new tapestry” movement of the 1970s, whose textile compositions have a sculptural quality. In order for the objects they weave to be considered genuine works of art, these artists carefully avoid any form that might be associated with the decorative arts (such as rugs or clothing), inventing new forms of expression for the flexible materials they work with.
4 Lastly–and in parallel–weaving is used by artists who do not actually make the pieces themselves and who are less interested in the question of the picture than in the cultural connotations of this technique. However, this activity is often identified with the female sphere or with the exoticism of oriental rugs–these are some of the clichés confronted by artists such as Mike Kelley (with his series of wool phalluses, Manly Crafts), Michel Aubry (and his collection of Afghan rugs with patterns of tanks and AK-47s) or Julien Prévieux (whose sweaters are produced by women pensioners in a knitting club, but feature diagrams representing different forms of rebellion).
WEFT
Teresa Lanceta says she originally taught herself to weave and sold her work to friends and family when she was a student6. Her work might seem amateur in the sense that she fell in love with Berber woven fabrics–partly through Bert Flint, a great collector of these objects–drawing inspiration from them and even imitating them. But we shouldn’t accept this partial account–which would exile Lanceta's work to the margins of recognised art–since Lanceta holds a PhD in Art History, which she has taught for several years, and has a profound knowledge of the art world. In fact, since the 1980s she has followed a route which is both reflective and radical in the context of contemporary art in Spain–which was marked at the time by the contrast between painting in Madrid and conceptualism in Barcelona–and in an international context where, as we have seen, the practice of weaving was subject to various critical interpretations. Lanceta's work is a journey through the history of weaving as an art. Her gouaches from the late 1980s and her pencil drawings from 1998 derive their abstract patterns and overall composition from the Berber woven fabrics which served as their model, much like Klee’s small paintings and drawings (our first category as described above). But the heart of her creative work lies in her large woven fabrics. While she mainly favours pieces woven in wool and cotton, she also covers pieces of canvas with paint and sews them together, in a technique which owes more to the humble craft of patchwork than to Berber traditions. However, these two techniques do not form a dialectic that provides the spectator with a theoretical account of her work. In fact, her work starts with these techniques, but then distorts, dodges and sometimes combines them. As we shall see, Lanceta is poised between a model which is still pictorial–where the picture format and a visual approach to the work predominate–and a more tactile, artisanal approach, where a woven fabric is seen less as a flat surface to be looked at than as a constructed, three-dimensional space (as in categories two and three above).
Farewell to the Rhombus is the third in a series of exhibitions that Lanceta has devoted to Berber woven fabrics and the role they have played in her own creative output. The comparison is intentional, as Lanceta exhibits original woven fabrics from her own collection together with her work. But rather than focusing on the obvious similarities, why not look at the differences? This will help us recognise the expressive features that are typical of Lanceta's work, as well as how it has evolved over time.
a) Lanceta's colours are more varied and more vivid than those of her Berber models. With her characteristically pragmatic humility, she once told me that if Berber women had more resources, they would use more expensive wool. But apart from this economic imbalance, Lanceta has a real talent for the handling of colour, which she derives in part from her extensive knowledge of abstract painting. She likes to quote Kenneth Noland, Bridget Riley and Barnett Newman, the proponents of “colour field” painting. One could say that the entire modernist theory of painting is based on the valuing of colour at the expense of drawing, ever since Maurice Denis’ famous definition of the picture: Before being a warhorse, a female nude, or some story or other, [it] is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order7. According to the modernist theory of painting, in spreading across the surface of a canvas, colour is intrinsically associated with that surface, which the modernist painter aims to underscore. Drawing, in contrast, is seen as serving primarily to outline figures, that is to say, to represent people or narratives, and hence as something extrinsic to painting.
Since the Renaissance, drawing has had a conceptual character, associated with design (disegno means both a project and something drawn). The first theorist of the “art of drawing”, Giorgio Vasari, who’s theories would be followed by all theorists of classical art, thought that painting, sculpture and architecture were the material expression of a prior idea, a form, a disegno, created by the artist’s imagination. Colour’s function was thus merely to fill in the drawing.
But modernist art theory rejected this “hylomorphic” concept (from the Greek words hyle, matter, and morphe, form) in favour of a different notion of the creative process: the idea comes to the artist in the act of painting itself, not beforehand. With modernism, improvisation took on positive connotations. Weaving, as the Berber women understand it, has often been associated with this modernist theory of painting. These Berber weavers do not prepare a drawing or cartoon before proceeding to make their weaves. Unlike the French practice, which is extremely hylomorphic and presupposes a strict division of labour between the artist who makes the drawing and the weaver who converts it into fabric on the loom, the Berbers design their fabrics and arrange the patterns as they go along. Their amazing ability to plan ahead is reminiscent of the chess masters, who plan their strategy several moves in advance. Far from merely copying previous compositions, Berber weavers subject the models they know to an almost infinite number of variations. The art critic Amy Goldin rightly compared this improvisation based on earlier models to jazz improvisation based on classic standards8. Invention cannot take place without imitation. How should we understand this paradox? According to jazz theorist Christian Bethune, what prevents us from seeing invention in imitation is our “graphological”, writing-driven culture9. Writing down a phrase–whether verbal or musical–fixes it in a permanent manner that is detached from both body and mind. Once written, it can be repeated mechanically, in a phenomenon that was reinforced by the invention of the printing press. When repetition or imitation becomes separate from the active body and mind, we see it as having “cooled down”, and it becomes the opposite of invention, which is seen as the expression of endlessly renewed vitality.
By contrast, in societies without writing, that is to say oral cultures, repetition is always connected to the spoken word which makes it happen. Thus, there is no repetition without invention, and no invention without repetition. The same is true of the visual arts, including modern painting–it is not by accident that one of the most celebrated artist’s books of the twentieth century was entitled, precisely, Jazz10–and of the Berber fabrics, which are the result of an oral culture, if ever there was one. Giving that thinking is closely associated with bodily movement, Berber weaving–and by the same token Lanceta's weaving–applies infinite variations on its models. The process itself gives rise to affections, to strokes of expression made manifest by colours. It is thus easy to understand how the fans of symbolism, who seek obsessively for a secret code in the patterns of Berber woven fabrics11, have missed what constitutes its most interesting feature, failing to see the fabric as the dynamic development of a thought in constant evolution. For them it is simply the expression of a pre-existing idea, the writing of a text. However, the modernist interpretation of painting invalidates this kind of reasoning when applied to the art of weaving and to Lanceta's work in particular.
b) Lanceta's work does not follow the rules of symmetry, but instead focuses on its models. Respect for the symmetry of the composition is an essential criterion of beauty in the eyes of the Berber weavers. However, they don’t use rulers or follow pre-existing models. They have “the compass in their eyes”, as Michelangelo allegedly said. They share an astonishing ability to work out in their heads the exact length and proportions of their patterns, starting from the central axis of the loom. The history of weaving since the eighteenth century is the history of the automation of artisanal gestures, leading up to industrialisation and to the coupling of humans with machines. But Berber weaving appears to resist this development. Berber women use the simplest possible looms, with no mechanical components. And so does Lanceta, whose woven fabrics look even more “handmade”, if that is possible. Let us compare, for example, a rug from the Middle Atlas and Lanceta's 1999 adaptation of it (Al Norte del Atlas Medio [North of the Middle Atlas]). The original Berber fabric has a pattern of chequered diamonds whose edges are ornamented with small geometric friezes and whose interiors contain more diamonds, themselves divided up into yet smaller diamonds, which in turn are composed of triangles. This complex structure extends from a central vertical axis and includes the same number of diamonds on both sides. Each inner diamond is made up of other diamonds, whose longest diagonal is always horizontal, and whose vertical diagonal coincides with the intersection of the inner triangles. Additional elements reinforce the symmetrical effect: for example, the two oblique white bars at the lower end and the two vertical shafts on the sides at the very top. But while the space is thus patterned by this oblique grid, it also displays a kind of rippling effect that breaks up the regularity of the grid and undoes the principle of symmetry. The sides of the diamonds are not completely straight and, most importantly, the colours of the triangles which occupy them do not always match symmetrically. The effect is reminiscent of the facets of a carved gemstone, which reflect the light differently depending on their position in space.
In Teresa’s version we find the same oblique grid structure made up of diamonds, but the grid no longer covers the entire surface. Several grids are combined or stacked vertically, each one symmetrical in its own way. The first, which starts at the bottom, is the most symmetrical, and is composed of off-white and grey diamond shapes outlined in black. Then comes a thin dotted line, then a second grid, made up of flatter diamonds in the same colours as the first grid. All the diamonds in this grid are identical in shape, but their outlines gradually disappear as we move from bottom to top and from left to right. Then the pattern of the first grid reappears, with its calming regularity (although we may notice some “accidents” on the left side). Then comes a transitional zone in which the black outlines no longer function to frame the white and blue diamonds, but instead turn into ripples, now in shades of grey and burgundy. The introduction of this new colour marks the beginning of a third grid. Very different from the previous ones, this grid alternates large and small diamonds, almost square in shape, that can be either monochrome or multicoloured. Symmetry has completely vanished. In Atlas Medio II [Middle Atlas II], a work also dating from 1999 that is not a woven fabric, but a collection of painted fabrics cut into diamond shapes and sewn together, we find the same disintegrating symmetry at the top of the picture: the diamonds, which until that point have maintained a certain degree of formal regularity, now seem to lose all self-control, as if they were overcome by a disruptive movement, producing a ripple effect. These surface accidents show us that achieving symmetry and regularity requires effort, that these qualities are not the result of the mechanical reproduction of the same pattern. They also point to the dynamism of the composition: all it takes to change the whole work is for one diamond to be slightly larger than the preceding one. Using the vocabulary of music, we could say that Lanceta's fabrics are permeated not so much by a repetitive beat as by a rhythm, a word which originally meant form in the instant that it is assumed by whatever is moving, mobile, fluid: the form of that which has no organic consistency12.
c) In a jazz ensemble the drummer’s role is to provide a steady beat, which varies according to the musical style of the standard being played, while the bassist follows the melodic line. But, especially in bebop, the drummer also creates seeming irregularities inside the beat, making room for an improvisation that allows for the rhythm to come alive. Syncopation is one example of these variations, which Lanceta also uses frequently: one pattern stops abruptly, interrupted by another, and thus breaking the symmetry. We can see this clearly in her 1998–1999 cushions, where, in contrast to the lower portion, the upper portion is characterised by violently juxtaposed patterns. In Cushion IV, for example, the upper half begins with a series of horizontal bands in which diamonds and zigzags alternate in a fairly regular manner; but suddenly, halfway up this section, the pattern changes dramatically, being invaded by large red, orange and black zigzags which traverse all the bands. In fact, these large zigzags come from the lower half of the cushion. Paradoxically, it is by restoring the unity of both parts that Lanceta creates the syncopation, not only between the two halves of the top section but also with the Berber tradition, which calls for a strict differentiation between the two sections. An untitled 1999 fabric is another fine example of syncopation. This piece begins with a base of horizontal bands that have roughly the same width. We might see it as the equivalent of a musical score, and “read” the composition from left to right and from bottom to top. But this first pattern is then penetrated by a second, syncopated one, so that each band is suddenly interrupted, as if the “instruments” (the patterns) that begin to play on the left were suddenly replaced by others, switching places with them. But we soon realise that the linear model of writing is inadequate for understanding the effect of the whole work, especially when we remember that it was constructed line by line from top to bottom, not from left to right. We then start to recognise a rhythm running vertically through the whole work through the repetition of certain blocks of shapes–the large rectangle with horizontal blue bands, the red rectangle with vertical bands, and so on. Syncopation exemplifies the paradox of regular irregularity: two different speeds at once. This effect is all the more remarkable considering that weaving is a slow process that involves repeating the same motions over and over. This untitled work is thus a virtuoso example of Lanceta's ability to overcome the difficulties of her practice by achieving difference through repetition.13
Teresa’s most extreme use of syncopation produces a fragmentation of the composition. In one of her cushions, based on a fairly symmetrical original, the effects of asymmetry predominate, while the effects of symmetry play second fiddle. In the bottom half, composed of a yellow background from which symmetry has completely disappeared, ten pink diamonds–or “eyes”–of varying sizes are distributed irregularly, although in each of them the longest diagonal is always the horizontal one. The theme of “eyes” on a yellow background reappears in the upper left quadrant, in the manner of a quotation or a fragment, while the upper right quadrant is occupied by a completely different composition, a sort of a rug-in-the-rug, as if Lanceta was mimicking the technique of patchwork. Lanceta's sewn fabrics are also composed in the manner of patchwork quilts, adding pieces of painted fabric to the sides. These, however, are her most carefully planned works. The rectangles of sewn fabric are cut up ahead of time in accordance with an overall plan which follows a particular format; that of the fabric woven on the loom. Moreover, they are pictures in which the simplicity of the design–simple monochrome stripes in Stripes or diamonds–makes their outlines appear all the more clearly. These bands, painted and sewn together, may remind us of the paper cut-outs by Matisse, who was a master at “drawing in colour” and creating ornamental and asymmetrical compositions. But they are even more reminiscent of the abstract, geometric paintings of Mondrian, Newman or Noland, in other words, of the reflective approach to painting in which the motion of the painter’s hand gives way to the phenomenological manifestation of colour and the power of simple forms.
It is only in recent years that fragmentary composition and the sewn fabric technique have coincided in Lanceta's work, particularly in the Rosas blancas [White Roses] series (Farewell to the Rhombus I and III), in which the juxtapositions are sharply dissonant, as if the pieces were cut from different fabrics. These works, created on stretchers, which tends to assimilate them rather more to paintings, represent the furthest point on Lanceta's journey away from the principles of Berber composition and towards contemporary painting. Perhaps she was seeking to evoke the major paintings of modernism as a way to elevate weaving to the status of Art–though with a degree of distance and, sometimes, humour. In this manner, her sewn patchwork pictures suggest closed-up versions of Lucio Fontana’s Spatial Concepts. However, Lanceta has told me that she now feels this direction was a dead end, and her most recent compositions return to a more traditional kind of weaving, at least technically speaking. And Lanceta is probably right in this judgement on her own work, since there is no longer any need to link the art of weaving to painting in order for it to win its rightful place in contemporary art museums. On the contrary, it is precisely by affirming her medium and her technique in radical terms that Lanceta shows her real stature as an artist.
d) Lanceta demonstrates her stature as an artist by means of the principle of “superimposition”, through which she succeeds in combining the technical demands of weaving with a much greater degree of freedom than that of Berber weaving, with its pictorial and traditional constraints. Thus, her patterns give the impression of being superimposed on each other, although they are created on the same surface and are produced simultaneously, as it were, not by an additive process.
The Bert Flint series is typical of this effect. The Moroccan rug owned by this collector has a pattern of alternating zigzags whose white backgrounds are decorated with red and green geometric patterns, and of zigzags of undulating red, green and mixed bands, all of the same width. This pattern covers the entire surface of the rug, which is framed by two vertical bands, also white, with the same zigzag pattern, although in this case reduced to a simple line. If we call the white zigzags A and the coloured-band zigzags B, we could say that A and B alternate regularly on the horizontal axis, even if B might give the impression of being in the background, when in fact the red, green and mixed bands are touched on either side by the white zigzags. But a degree of irregularity in the outlines produces small discrepancies which diminish this impression of continuity. In the variations she performs on this model, Lanceta makes the superimposition effect much more obvious: the vertical zigzags now clearly seem to pass in front of the undulating horizontal bands, which no longer look like zigzags, but like a continuous background (Bert Flint I and II). Furthermore, the vertical framing bands now appear to lie on top of the horizontal bands, instead of next to them. In Bert Flint VII an effect of “transparency” is produced by the open spaces between the white knots of the vertical bands and their zigzags, through which the horizontal bands extending “underneath” can be seen.
The sewn piece Desde otro lugar II [From Another Place II] follows the same principle. In this case, the seams fulfil two functions: they connect the rectangular pieces of fabric, which are painted in horizontal bands of different colours (producing a syncopated effect), and they also form diamond shapes superimposed on these painted rectangles. The seams thus function as lines, distorting their purely technical purpose.
The technical distinction between woven fabrics and fabrics that are painted and sewn together thus becomes a relative one, for Lanceta's morphological principles transcend this dichotomy. For example, in some of her cushions we see what looks like coarse white stitching across the horizontal bands of the higher part of the work. This pattern appears in the original, but Lanceta exaggerates it. Although this “stitching” is reminiscent of other woven fabrics, these are not real seams; they are simply knots in white thread that are sewn into the coloured weft of the horizontal bands with the sole intent of imitating real seams.
In an untitled piece of 1999 composed primarily of horizontal bands, some thick blue lines break up the regularity of the bands by crossing diagonally behind them. In another piece from the same year, the opposite effect is created: the primary patterns are vertical zigzags, but these are crossed by thin horizontal bands of rapidly alternating black and white knots. The presence of these bands has a definite impact on the large colourful zigzags. In some places they cross at a point where a dramatic change of colour or rhythm creates a syncopated effect. These superimposed patterns sometimes interact with each other to define a complex space where surface and depth appear to be two different degrees of the same dimension.
Some of the works entitled Farewell to the Rhombus, which exhibit the same technique, are remarkable because, atypically, Lanceta uses the warp threads to construct her forms, whereas the warp is usually hidden, covered by the knots. The principle involved is like that of plain weaving, which is simply the intersection of threads at right angles, but the effect produced is quite different. We might say that the horizontal patterns are blurred by the vertical components, which can be more or less continuous and quite irregular, as if something like a filter or a shower of rain had come between the patterns and the spectator. The warp threads do not form a pattern strictly speaking, but disrupt the patterns created by the weft. Farewell to the Rhombus thus provides an interesting variation on the principle of superimposition. It reminds us that to weave does not mean to cover a surface, but to “open up” a space–precisely the space between the warp threads, which opens when they are separated by the heddle to let the weft pass through. Superimposition thus shows the spectator the three-dimensionality that the artist feels manually, by touch.
TACT
Like many twentieth-century artists, Teresa Lanceta still sees painting as a model, even for her woven fabrics. Her use of colour, her sense of improvisation and her choice of fragmentation all relate to jazz and to modernist painting, but the more she evokes painting the further she departs from the realm of weaving and from her models, and the further she turns away, perhaps, from her most personal, radical trajectory–this trajectory is most fully evident when she remains closest to her models and allows the unconstrained use of their techniques to lead her to novel variations and effects of superimposition, thus overcoming the purely optical view of the fabric as a painting, and replacing it with a tactile three-dimensionality that is part of the process of weaving itself.
The exhibition title, Farewell to the Rhombus, and Lanceta's most recent work in the fields of drawing, photography and video perhaps bear witness to a difficult coming to terms. She has told me it is a “farewell to innocence”, a farewell to the “guilty” innocence that allowed her to love and imitate Berber woven fabrics for years without incorporating into her artistic practice the issues of gender, politics, economics and religion, which inevitably arise in this type of appropriation. How can anyone continue to weave “à la Berbère” without falling into a romanticised vision of nomadic societies, without succumbing to “Orientalism”, without idealising the condition of these women? This coming to terms is not a farewell to the weave, but a genuine homage to these anonymous artists and to the chance meetings that allowed Teresa Lanceta not only to discover their extraordinary creations, but also the creators, some of whom have become her friends. Lanceta is not just an admirer of traditional textile art, like most of the European artists who preceded her. She empathises with it, and her tactile art of woven fabrics expresses, all the more, the dimensions of her relationship with the women and men who keep it alive.
Thomas Golsenne