The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End

LaGamma, Alisa, and Christine Giuntini (2008)

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Description

Textiles are a major form of aesthetic expression across Africa, and this book examines long-standing traditions together with recent creative developments. A variety of fine and venerable West African cloths are presented and discussed in terms of both artistry and technique. Wrapped around the body, fashioned into garments, or displayed as hangings, these magnificent textiles include bold strip weavings and intricately patterned indigo resist-dyed cloths. Also considered by the authors are striking contemporary works—in media as far-ranging as sculpture, painting, photography, video, and installation art—that draw inspiration from the forms and cultural significance of African textiles.

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 30, 2008–March 22, 2009.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword

Acknowledgments

The Poetics of Cloth
Alisa LaGamma

West African Cloth: Techniques and Tradition
Christine Giuntini

Textiles from the Exhibition
Alisa LaGamma and Christine Giuntini

Bibliography
Index
Photograph Credits

About the authors

Alisa LaGamma is Curator and Christine Giuntini is Conservator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Press reviews

Embroidery Magazine

"... sheds light on the significance of textiles as a major form of expression across Africa ..."

College Art Association

"... well-informed and detailed attention to the specifics of technique and process is useful for those wanting to understand the underlying structure of West African textile design."

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Exhibition

The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End

Dazzling textile traditions figured importantly in the earliest recorded accounts of visitors to sub-Saharan Africa, dating to as early as the ninth century. Historically, textiles also constituted one of the primary commodities imported into sub-Saharan Africa, through trade routes that extended south across the Sahara from North Africa until the fifteenth century and subsequently by Europeans along the Gold Coast. Among the earliest documented examples of West African textile traditions were those collected by European textile manufacturers seeking new markets for their own exports in the nineteenth century. A significant collection given to The British Museum in 1934 consisted of the African textiles gathered in West Africa before 1913 by Charles Beving, who was a partner of a Manchester firm. More than a dozen of these works, which were gathered as part of market research to determine regional tastes, figure centrally in this exhibition....

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