Anni Albers and the Modernist Textile

Focussing on the work of the great twentieth-century weaver Anni Albers, but also considering a range of other important artists and designers, this major international conference aims to examine the afterlife of a Bauhaus weaving aesthetic as it was transformed across transnational networks of dialogue and dissemination.

SATURDAY, 26 JANUARY

10:00
Registration
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10:15
Welcome and Introduction
Briony Fer, UCL: The textile imaginary
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10:30-12:00
Session 1: A GLOBAL ATLAS

10:30 Grant Watson, co-curator of Textiles: Open Letter (2015) and co-curator of Bauhaus Imaginista research project (2018-19) will speak on the concept of a global Bauhaus, with special reference to Anni Albers’ weaving

10:50 Gabriela García de Cortázar, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, on Anni Albers in Chile and Peru in the early 1950s

11:10 Tanya Harrod, independent design historian, London, on researching the vernacular to find the modern: interwar British weavers and their travels

11:30 Ana Elena Mallet, independent art and design historian, Mexico City, on Anni Albers in Mexico

11:50 Discussion
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12:00-12:10
Break
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12:10-1:00
Session 2: STRUCTURE

12:10 Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator, National Gallery of Art Washington, who is currently researching woven structures, will speak on Legacy and Lineage

12:30 David Batchelor, artist, writer and author of Chromophobia, on the relationships between textiles and modernism

12:50 Discussion
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1:00-2:15
Lunch
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2:15-3:30
Session 3: TEXTILES AS THEORY

2:15 Tom McDonough, University of Binghampton, on the Knot in Anni Albers and Semper’s modern architectural theory

2:35 Caroline Arscott, Courtauld Institute, on William Morris and the role of weaving processes in the formation of modernism and ideas of a utopian future

2:55 Rye Holmboe, UCL, on Anna Freud’s weaving practice and the role of weaving in the metaphorical language of psychoanalysis

3:15 Discussion
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3:45-4:15
Session 4: CURATING ANNI ALBERS

3:45 Briony Fer in conversation with Helen Molesworth, curator of the seminal Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College (2016), on curating textiles​

The co-curators of the Anni Albers retrospective at Tate Modern, Ann Coxon and Maria Müller-Schareck (K20 Dusseldorf), will contribute their responses in this session
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4:15-4:45
Break
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4:45-6:00
Session 5: TEXTILES AND THE DIGITAL

4:45 Giulia Smith, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, on the relation between craft and technology in the work of Mary Martin

5:05 Cadence Kinsey, University of York, on weaving and the digital, tracing the links that have been made between the Jacquard loom and the first computer, through to the work of American artist Beryl Korot

5:25 Discussion
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6:00
Drinks reception
South Cloisters, Wilkins’ Building, UCL​


Sunday, 27 JANUARY

10:00
Registration
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10:30-12:00
Session 6: THE HAPTIC PROCESS

10:30 Briony Fer, UCL, Anni Albers’ samples: the hand and the haptic

10:50 Karis Medina, Associate Curator - Albers Foundation, on Anni Albers’ working process

11:10 Mona Schieren, University of the Arts Bremen, on textility in the work of Anni Albers and Lenore Tawney

11:30 Discussion
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12:00-1:00
Session 7: FILM VIEWING

Artist Judith Raum on her film on Bauhaus weaver Otti Berger, followed by discussion
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1:00-2:00
Lunch
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2:00-3:00
Session 8: MATERIALS - THE STUFF OF MODERN LIFE

Short papers by doctoral students and younger researchers working in the field, based on workshops that took place in Fall 2018/Jan 2019 in the Anni Albers exhibition
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3:00-3:30
Discussion and closing remarks


For more information, please visit www.annialbersmodernisttextile.com
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This project is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.