Material Worlds Touring Show: Corinne Julius Review
Textiles seems to be the stuff of fine artists, or so a plethora of textile-based shows would have you believe. The Barbican, Tate, Hepworth, Arnolfini, not to mention Paul Smith, have all recently staged textile shows. Previously ignored or critiqued for its association with female and folk art, textiles are currently the material (pun intended) of choice.
Now, the Hayward Gallery is in on the act with a new touring show, Material Worlds. The show kicks off at the Mead Gallery at Warwick University, Coventry, before embarking on an 18-month tour through additional venues (see below). The show is curated by Caroline Achaintre, known for her tufted fibre wall works. “I wanted the exhibition to emphasise the transition from something quite every day, domestic, and supposedly unspectacular, into the creation of fantastical and extraordinary works, worlds, and visions,” she explains.
To do so, the artists examine ideas of gender, identity, community, ethnicity, myth, and technology. Achaintre’s selection is mostly UK based, encompassing established and upcoming artists, but concentrating on fine artists who happen to use textiles, rather than artists with a textile background.
Holly Hendry, Slacker, 2019.
Textiles are rarely shown in large spaces with room for the exhibits to breathe, but the Mead gallery is a welcome exception. On entering, visitors are confronted by a gigantic machine, gently clicking away. Holly Hendry’s kinetic sculpture Slacker (2019), inspired by the historical Jacquard loom, uses synthetic materials, fabrics, and aggregates of reused plastics to create a skin that rotates. It’s imposing, but not as interesting or meaningful as its size suggests.
Alexandre Da Cunha, Arena, 2020
Large works seem to be conceived of as significant simply because of their size, although some manage to carry off their oversized scale. Phyllida Barlow’s large, (but allegedly anti-monumental) Canvasracks is a collection of coloured, ghost-like figures, composed of huge sheets of painted canvas hung from poles with “elephant feet” made of concrete. They hang like ghouls, but are nevertheless strangely moving. On a similar scale is Alexandre Da Cunha’s Arena, made of umbrellas. Da Cunha enjoys the viewers’ surprise at the material’s origins, intending for them to question the use and notions of global labour and trade.
Further larger pieces comprise of works by Tonico Lemos Auad, which include images of his transitory carpet fluff animals stabilised with hair spray. More recently he has made textile itself more central to his work, like the woven works on display that are inspired by Derek Jarman’s garden. These, like Yelaena Popova’s abstract tapestries based on her research on nuclear power plants, depend on textile techniques and skills.
Anna Perach, Venus, 2023.
So too does Anna Perach’s discombobulating Venus, a female form, based on 18th-century disassembleable and anatomical studies of women’s bodies, made by tufting and accompanied by glass innards. It is her reflection on gender and patriarchy. Similarly disturbing is Caroline Achaintre’s HEL 2023, a tufted mask on a metal frame that reeks of ritualism and mystical folk traditions. Jonathan Baldoch’s huge puppet like figures The Caretakers are simple yet scary, and pick up on this folk theme. He uses wool and felt, along with hemming, stitching (especially blanket stitch), and embroidery learned from his grandmother, to demonstrate that the functional can be both beautiful and monstrous. Zadie Xa explores South Korean shamanistic traditions in her embroidered coats and capes decorated with an eclectic mix of yin yang symbols, images of kimchi, embroidered iridescent patches, and fringes of pink false hair.
Paloma Proudfoot, The Mannequins Reply, 2023.
The concept of textiles and process is wide-ranging and includes Tenant of Culture, Hendrickje Schimmel’s disassembled and reconfigured shoes, which question the values of the fashion industry. Rae Yen Song uses textiles in her strange ménage of costumes that are positively amphibious, but with gruesome, falsely smiling pink faces. The green hued scales however could have been made of paper, not cloth, as might other works in the show. Indeed Paloma Proudfoot’s The Mannequin’s Reply is made out of ceramics. She creates figures using assemblages inspired by clothing techniques. Her fetishist female figures scarily stitch one another into garments. By depicting textiles in ceramics, she aims to bring the relationship between garments and bodies into focus.
Rae-Yen Song, Song Dynasty, 2021.
The curator’s selection seems to favour textiles as a way of shocking, scaring, or alienating; presumably a deliberate rejection of cloth’s supposedly feminine and therefore “cosy” nature. The objective seems to be to jolt visitors into re-evaluating textiles and up to a point it succeeds. However, the curation misses out on subtler, and to some extent more traditional uses of textile techniques and the more complex ideas that can arise from that. It may be unintentional, but the show seems to reinforce the idea that artists can use textiles as fine art, but that textile artists don’t create fine art.
However, there are sufficient significant differences in aesthetic, techniques, and concepts to make it an engaging and interesting show; one that is eclectic but ultimately intriguing and worth travelling to see.
Words: Corinne Julius
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Material Worlds is touring at the following locations:
17 May - 31 August 2025: Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham
September 2025 - January 2026: The Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham
For further Information, please visit:
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Image credits:
Lead Image: Phyllida Barlow, untitled: canvasracks; 2018-2019. Photo: Damian Griffiths.
2. Holly Hendry. Photo by Mark Reeves.
3. Alexandre Da Cunha, Arena, 2020
4. Anna Perach, Venus, 2023. Image by Andy Keate, courtesy of Gasworks London.
5. Rae-Yen Song, song dynasty, 2021. Image credit: Tiu Makkonen.