KNITTED WORLDS – Goodbye!

By: Suzan Russeler

To everything comes an end. After three month living amidst Knitted Worlds me and my colleagues started to tear off the exhibition last Sunday evening. Fragment of a building # 1 was the last work to be deconstructed and Désirée did it herself.

We received many positive reactions on the exhibition from visitors (nearly 15.000 visitors during the exhibition) and press, but also critical comment. Art critics liked the focus on politics, feminism and identity in relation to knitting, but didn´t appreciate that much the variety of works.

While researching I was especially triggered by the richness of issues expressed in works dealing with knitting. Of course, politics and female identity play a central role in quite some art works we presented and maybe these works are most overtly intriguing. However the more poetic, silent pieces, like the dresses of Nanna van Blaaderen to me contrasted in an interesting way with f.e. the subversive, more explicit works of Jimini Hignett, bringing up issues of feminism and politics.

Visitors could make up their mind - for everybody who didn´t had the chance to see the exhibition hopefully the catalogue will be a ´substitute´. All works are wrapped up now, ready to be returned while others like the Sunflowers of Maria Roosen will dream in the depository of our museum until they will be woken up because somebody is longing for them……….

I would like to thank all participating artists, lending parties, the designers Annemarie van den Berg en Cecilia Hendrikx for the design of the exhibition and catalogue, my colleagues, visitors of exhibition and website for being part of Knitted Worlds for some moment.

Library treasure VII

By: Jantiene van Elk

This image needs no further comments by me. May be the readers of this blog want to comment?

Nomotta kousen en handschoenen. - Salach, Wtbg : Schachenmayr, Mann & Cie, [s.a.]. (Nomotta serie ; 103.

Library treasure VI

By: Jantiene van Elk

'Een zeer gewichtig punt bij het vervaardigen van kunstbreiwerk, is het afwerken der kleedjes, en de rand kan in sommige gevallen een heel eenvoudig kleedje een veel sierlijker en fraaier aanzien geven.'

It´s important to make nice trimmings to your craft work, because it will give your work a finer and more elegant look!

Kunst-breien : 73 nieuwe patronen voor gebreide kanten en kleedjes benevens een technische bescrhijving/ door J. Weinbeck. -Alkmaar : Kluitman, [192?].

Interview with an exhibition guide

By: Suzan Russeler

Lately I talked with my colleague Esther van den Borne, who is working as a designer and also as a guide in our museum. Esther was very enthusiastic about Knitted Worlds and her experience with groups.

`I´m happy with this exhibition because it challenges people and triggers them to think. Mostly I give guided tours to high school and art students, or to groups with some special interest. That means that people are reasonably well informed about the subject matter. When you enter the exhibition hall straight ahead you see the artworks of ´knit´ pioneers like Rosemarie Trockel and Elaine Reichek. Some of those works aren´t that easy to read. But, luckily right across of these works there is this very illustrative film of Dave Cole, called The Knitting Machine.

Two excavators, holding enormous knitting needles, move back and forth while the artist himself puts some XL yarn in a loop around the needles, thus knitting the American flag. People like watching this film and immediately understand the interrelation between art and knitting. So that blow up of the act of knitting by Dave Cole is a very good point of reference for other more subtle art works.
This start up of my tour also offers the opportunity to switch from the art aspect to more technical aspects of knitting, material and texture depending on the interest of the group.

The works of Jimini Hignett and Jayne Parker some visitors, mainly elderly or youngsters, experience as quite confronting.

However if you tell them that the works are an artistic reaction on social and artistic issues people can deal with it, discuss it. The funny thing is that they seem to feel relieved they aren´t expected to appreciate the works in terms of beauty.


Photo´s: Joep Vogels (Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg)