From the First Person-Number II

Aleksandra Stoyanov Israeli, born Ukraine

1997–98

Not on view

Ukrainian-born artist Aleksandra Stoyanov began making tapestries in 1987, building on her background in graphic and set design. A few years later, after immigrating to Israel, she created a series of innovative handwoven works based on photographs from her family album. This example features an enlarged and reworked version of a picture of the artist at age eleven, taken by her grandfather in Odessa, Ukraine, during anniversary celebrations of the October 1917 (Bolshevik) revolution. The only instance in which Stoyanov overtly addresses the self-portrait, it claims childhood as a defining period of her life. The gradual dissolution of the image across the tapestry evokes the double process of memories of her youth fading away and coming back, suggesting the past caught in a perpetual return.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Title: From the First Person-Number II
Artist: Aleksandra Stoyanov (Israeli, born Odessa, Ukraine 1957)
Date: 1997–98
Medium: Wool, rayon, synthetic fiber
Dimensions: 76 1/2 × 78 1/2 in. (194.3 × 199.4 cm)
Classification: Textiles-Tapestries
Credit Line: Gift of Doron and Marianne Livnat, 2012
Object Number: 2012.307
Rights and Reproduction: © Aleksandra Stoyanov
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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