Invitation: Upcoming program with Galerie de Slang, Contextile, BIG ART, Woven Value & more

Dear friends, colleagues, and interested readers,

I hope you are enjoying the end of a wonderful summer. I would like to cordially invite you to the upcoming program.

This summer, I moved back into my beautiful, large studio at the front of our studio building on Gouwstraat. This means I have more space for experimentation and can host masterclasses once again. After a brief pause, I am setting up a new curriculum where philosophy, technique (simple manual exercises that have been practiced worldwide for centuries), art history, and contemplation come together. Rooted in the ‘philosophy of the thread’, I aim to connect the key developments of 40,000 years of working with thread to contemporary insights and challenges. The program is open to young and old, men and women, and anyone wishing to gain insight into the ancient connections that textile has to offer. No prior knowledge is required. Please spread the word!

The first Flax Masterclass is scheduled for Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. As a textile expert, I will take you through the history of flax, linen, and (textile) art.

I am also continuing the gallery space that Hans Walgenbach built in my former studio. The inaugural exhibition, featuring work by photographer Marijn de Jong, opens this Saturday at 3:00 PM. You are warmly welcome! Galerie de Slang started as an initiative of mine to show artists with whom I feel a kinship. Unintentionally, the initiative reveals an affinity with the practice of Seth Siegelaub, who presented conceptual artists in his gallery alongside historical textiles. What is historical and what is conceptual is now up to the visitor to discover.

The next public presentation of my own work will take place September 11–13 at BIG ART. Together with architect Roxane van Hoof (Studio Verter), I will create a large installation in the impressive, vacant Codrico factory (next to the Nederlands Fotomuseum). We are building the installation out of our shared expertise and interest in connections with flax, working with available materials from various eras. This installation offers a preview of upcoming presentations stemming from our collaboration within Linen Beyond Fashion.

Two years ago, I won the second prize at the Contextile Textile Biënnal in Portugal. I didn’t shout it from the rooftops, but I was thrilled—partly because this major biennial brings together so much expertise, connecting younger and older generations and diverse practices.

This year, I will deliver a lecture at the biennial on September 7, as part of the program dedicated to slow practices and care. For now, the lecture carries the long working title: “Anywhere from Anywhere (The Linen Canvas reconfigured or Textile as a Spatial, Relational System of Knowledge Production in Art, Technology, and Modernity)”. In the presentation, I will speak about 40,000 years of textile development, the work of Anni Albers and Marcel Duchamp, Pre-Columbian textiles, and the -isms (ruptures) in Western art history. I will share the lecture and my research text at a later date.

Something else VERY much worth mentioning and of which I am proud: the exhibition ‘Geweven waarde’ (Woven Value), which I curated with my colleague and art historian Mirjam Deckers for the Textielcommissie in Leiden, is getting a sequel (hopefully the first of many) in Rotterdam! In the imposing studio of Dré Wapenaar, we are presenting a new selection of works. Beyond the extensive textiles on view, there will also be space for sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music!

The presentation runs for a short duration during the Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend, so don’t miss it. It will open on Friday, September 18 at 8:00 PM with a musical performance by Rubric on three grand pianos, performing Philip Glass’s ‘The Photographer’ for the occasion (see the attached flyer). Remarkably, we will also showcase three works by Dutch textile artist Margot Rolf, which she will bring and install in person. Respect! On Saturday, September 19, and Sunday, September 20, the exhibition can be visited in the afternoon.

Is there anything else to share? Yes! An upcoming textile symposium hosted by the Textielcommissie NL on textile heritage and swatch books—a collaboration between the Textielcommissie, the TextielMuseum, MoMA, ETWIE, and other partners. The symposium will take place on November 20.

For the day of the textile symposium, I am creating a display in the library featuring swatches from contemporary manual makers. Textile is a spatial construction. Whoever lacks insight into that construction cannot innovate within it—because key conceptual connections are missed. That is my conviction, born from my own research into textile as a language. Textile is not primarily about stories and imagery; it is the reverse. Textile possesses its own language in which images and symbols emerge from the construction and the connection with nature, human nature, and the nature of technology. That language incites thinking and making. Well-designed textile survives time and offers room for personal use, reuse, and interpretation. It is the users who keep textile alive through their own narratives and imagination. That is not new, but fortunately, it remains as vibrant as ever. An artist’s work is not about ‘new’, but about repositioning the thread within a shifting context that is both personal and shared—because we share actions across time.

I wrote about this connection in my travel report from Peru, where I re-engaged with backstrap loom exercises. I’m an insider and outsider there. I also wrote a response to the article Hans den Hartog Jager wrote regarding the exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s work at MoMA. It is in Dutch. More of my research in English later.

If you happen to be near my studio, feel free to drop by!

Warm regards,

Maaike