Marc Straus Gallery presents SUTURES, a group exhibition of artworks that employ weaving, sewing, and/or fibrous elements such as thread in the composition. Included in the works is Michele Ciacciofera (CRF 2016).
Weaving and sewing were traditionally recognized as craft, and women’s work, but its importance has outgrown such narrow considerations and it is now an integral part of the work of artists from around the world, both men and women. SUTURES explores the continued invention of art within this broad genre. How does an artist imbue a strong sense of history and memory into this delicate process? From woven object to sculpture, each artist introduces his/her own distinct thread-work that elicits an individual expression of labor, love, and intimacy. Consider the process of creating the woven object: a work may begin with a single string and conclude as a complex and interconnected whole. Taken as a metaphor for life, weaving mirrors perhaps the circulatory system; arteries and veins, and speaks to the intricate web of human consequences, each choice as important as the next ultimately culminating in a fragile and complicated existence.
Michele’s piece that is part of larger, complex conceptual installation, Janas Code. The three-paneled work is based on the legends of his native Sardinia: mythical Janas fairies left messages and materials for humans to later find, that aided their early societal developments. The myths are a means to examine the “centrality of women to Sardinian society and highlight their crucial role in the preservation and transmission of memory to the future generations.” The gridded frame supports a woven network of coded objects, recalling the secret alphabet of symbols of the Janas, representative of collective memory and knowledge being passed down through generations and the cycles of myth becoming human history.
SUTURES is on view through October 16th, 2018