Wolle. Seide. Widerstand.

Öffentliche Führungen

Public guided tours of the exhibition Wolle. Seide. Widerstand.

Sat 7 February, 3 pm
‘War Rugs From America’
With the artist Johannah Herr, the curator Dr Katharina Weiler and the junior curator Leon Lukas Plum (EN)

Wed, 25 February, 6.30 pm
Ornament and Resistance
With curator Dr Katharina Weiler and art historian Dr Eva Linhart

Wed, 11 March, 6.30 pm
With junior curators Sofia Simeth and Leon Lukas Plum

Wed, 18 March, 6.30 pm
Carpets and new artistic concepts between fine art and applied art
With art historian Dr Eva Linhart

Wed, 25 March, 6 pm
With junior curators Sofia Simeth and Leon Lukas Plum

Sun, 12 April, 11 am and 3 pm
With junior curators Sofia Simeth and Leon Lukas Plum

Wed, 22 April, 6.30 pm
With curator Dr Katharina Weiler

Wed, 29 April, 6.30 pm
With junior curators Sofia Simeth and Leon Lukas Plum

Sun 17 May, 3 pm
Wool, Values, Resistance: Contemporary Carpets between the Art Market and World Politics
With art historian Francesco Colli

Sun 24 May, 3 pm
Closing event
With curator Dr Katharina Weiler

No booking required. Included in the admission price. Please check the events calendar on our website for further dates.

With the exhibition ‘Wool. Silk. Resistance.’, the Museum of Applied Arts is, for the first time in 45 years, devoting itself exclusively to the theme of carpets – at a time when the widespread interest in handmade textiles of all kinds is, incidentally, reflected in a striking number of international exhibitions.

The exhibition presents carpets by international contemporary artists who address themes of political resistance, individual and collective resilience, and defiance. Their resistance is directed against systems of rule and exercises of power perceived as illegitimate, against traditionalism, discrimination, racism, trauma or environmental destruction. The artists’ carpets thus function as striking media for socio-political commentary. With equal radicalism, they occasionally transcend the boundaries of two-dimensionality: they explore the possibilities of the three-dimensional, unfolding as textile sculptures and immersive spaces of experience that, through their affective quality, engage with contemporary life processes.

This exhibition aims not to view carpets from a stylistic-historical perspective, but rather to present them within a line of development that lies outside traditional Western carpet research. The title itself hints at new questions: Can something resistant take place in and through textile materials? And if so, in what way do carpets in particular embody an ‘aesthetic of textile resistance’? In this regard, the exhibition focuses on the perspectives of international artists represented by recent works from the first quarter of the 21st century, whose approach to the carpet—now transformed into an open art object—is intertwined with various aspects of resistance. But what makes this medium so interesting for artists to reflect on resistance, and in doing so to explore intertwined themes through knots, the warp and weft, or with the tufting gun?

The exhibition presents selected works by the following artists:

Faig Ahmed, Diedrick Brackens, Johannah Herr, Jan Kath, Baseera Khan, Alexandra Kehayoglou, William Kentridge, Noelle Mason, Otobong Nkanga, Tobias Rehberger, Erin M. Riley, Tsherin Sherpa, Rose Stach, Nasan Tur and Jeroen van den Bogaert.

Curator: Dr Katharina Weiler