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Indepth Arts News:
"Lace in Translation"
2009-09-24 until 2010-04-03
Design Center at Philadelphia University
Philadelphia, ,
USA United States of America
The Design Center at Philadelphia University has received a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to create an exhibition entitled: Lace in Translation. Lace in Translation will be the first exhibition produced by The Design Center in conjunction with its new interpretive initiative, The Fabric of Philadelphia. Three contemporary art/design studios, whose works are often inspired by traditional lace imagery, are mining the historic lace collection at The Design Center (TDC) for inspiration. These Dutch and Canadian art/design teams are being commissioned to create new, site-specific works for installation in the Center’s galleries and on its adjoining grounds during the fall and winter of 2009/10.
The Fabric of Philadelphia is a collaborative effort, led by TDC – in partnership with area museums, libraries, businesses, and community members – to capture and communicate the compelling story of the Philadelphia region’s textile heritage to area residents, tourists, scholars, and school and community groups. TDC serves as a logical focal point for the telling of the region’s textile stories, as part of the nation’s oldest textile school (Philadelphia University) and as the repository of the university’s historic textile collection, including major holdings from Philadelphia’s pinnacle as a national center for textile design and manufacturing. Among these holdings are a discrete collection of lace samples, marketing materials, and original designs from the Quaker Lace Company of Philadelphia. Quaker Lace capitalized on the importation of the lace curtain machine from England to the U.S. in the late 1880s, and quickly became a leading national industry through the savvy marketing of machine-made lace as a stylish accoutrement for middle-class homes and women’s fashions. TDC’s Quaker Lace collections include some 150 machine-made lace samples from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as advertising brochures and glass slides depicting the company’s products in domestic settings. TDC also houses an extraordinary collection of thousands of drawings by lace designer Frederick Charles Vessey (1862-1948), who – along with lace-making machinery and skilled laceweavers – was brought to Philadelphia from Nottingham, England by the firm’s owners. In an intriguing counterpoint to the creative process of the designers selected for this project, who will turn to historic designs for inspiration to create new concepts for domestic and industrial design, Vessey himself mined such varied sources as Egyptian tomb paintings, Jacobean architectural motifs, and tin ceiling catalogs to inspire and inform his designs for the Quaker Lace product line.
To celebrate Quaker Lace and Philadelphia’s critical contribution to American textile design, TDC is featuring three contemporary art/design studios whose work conjures the lace-making traditions of their native countries. The exhibition will include:
* A multi-sensory gallery installation featuring furniture, lighting, and laser-cut fabrics by Dutch designer Tord Boontje (www.tordboontje.com).
* A “lace,” chain-link fence installation in The Design Center’s front yard by the Dutch design studio, Demakersvan (www.demakersvan.com).
* An environmental installation in the enclosed back yard garden area by Canadian artist Cal Lane, (www.callane.com).
Even as Quaker Lace designers like Vessey turned to traditional, handmade lace from the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Belgium for inspiration, the designs they produced will in turn inform the creative concepts of these international artists and designers. And as lace-making machines once translated the deft fingerings of traditional lacemakers into the “complex, rapid and intricately synchronized movements of … metallic parts,” this exhibition will push the concept of lace further still, utilizing unexpected materials and new technologies to transform interior and exterior spaces. In an age in which the traditional boundaries of what a “textile” is are stretched – when Kevlar helmets are made of woven carbon fiber and street lamps constructed from woven fiberglass – this project similarly will challenge customary notions of what lace is and how it functions: from its origins as a luxury product, reserved for the privileged few; through its mechanization and resulting dissemination to a mass consumer market; and now to its re-conceptualization as bold design elements in the environment.
Lace in Translation, which begins in September 2009, will run through April 3, 2010.
For more information, visit the exhibit's official website at www.LaceInTranslation.com.
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