Inside BLUE
| Hiroyuki Shindo, Shindigo Space 07, 2006. ‘Shindigo shibori’-dyed cotton and hemp and Shindigo balls (polystyrene wrapped with hemp and dip-dyed). Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Joel Chester Fildes. |
An upcoming exhibit focuses on the relationship of the textile dyer and indigo blue
Color is a visual experience. The ability to create color in a man-made environment, as a dye or a pigment, is a significant achievement in human culture—an accomplishment that will be celebrated at an upcoming exhibit at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C.
BLUE, slated to run from April 4 to September 18, 2008, aims to reveal how some colors, such as blue (and red which was examined in the 2007 museum exhibit RED) resonate with us on a visceral level. Both exhibits aim to focus on the arts of the textile dyer, rather than the textile designer, and the ways in which color can be obtained, processed and applied.
The color of indigo has a long history that stems originally from ancient cultures who attributed talismanic properties as well as health benefits to indigo. But to achieve blue-colored garments, household furnishings, artworks or even body paint, people relied on indigo-bearing plants as a source until the invention of chemical dyes in the late 19th century.
“BLUE will feature installations from contemporary internationally renowned artists, such as Hiroyuki Shindo, a Japanese artist who grows and processes his own indigo to produce innovatively patterned textiles, as well as Maria Eugenia Davila and Eduardo Portillo, who raise silkworms and dye threads with natural dyes in Venezuela,” explains Lee Talbot, assistant curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections and BLUE.
Talbot says that in the case of contemporary artist Shihoko Fukumoto, the curators installed a portable tea ceremony room, a three-dimensional space created by a six by six foot cube of indigo-dyed linen and wall hangings that use blue dyes to suggest the recession and infinity of space two-dimensionally.
“In this section of the exhibition, we did not want to select artworks that just happened to be blue, but rather to choose artists who consistently use the color blue as an integral component in their work,” says Talbot. “Many of these artists explore themes of particular interest to us, such as the definition of physical space through textiles and the ways that the color blue influences our perceptions of space.” For more information, visit www.textilemuseum.org.
