Textile artists: the pioneers of a new material world

Wallpaper features textile artists, including LA locals Tanya Aguiñiga and Sanford Biggers . . .

These contemporary textile artists are weaving together the common threads and rich variety of fibre art in new ways

The last century has seen a renaissance in thread-based art. It was only during the Bauhaus years in the early 20th century that textiles began to enter the vocabulary of modern art, a move indebted to textile masters like Anni Albers, who turned her weaving loom into vehicle for innovation. Albers saw the potential of textiles beyond a ‘women’s craft’ and has since influenced swathes of creatives including Sheila Hicks, who studied under both Anni and Josef Albers and myriad fashion designers including Paul Smith, Hermès and Roksanda. Other artists who took textiles to new heights in the 20th century include Sonia Delaunay, Judith Scott, and Louise Bourgeois.

In the 1970s, coinciding with the women’s liberation movement, and the rise of feminist art, textiles underwent its own revolution. Fibre art was born: textiles was catapulted beyond the domestic space and unshackled from veiled art world snobbery. The medium took on a life beyond functional craft; it became textiles for textiles’ sake. 

Tanya Aguiñiga, Extraño 2, ice-dyed cotton rope, synthetic hair. Courtesy of Volume Gallery, Chicago and the artist

Textile artist Tanya Aguiñiga, now based in Los Angeles, spent a childhood in Tijuana, Mexico. During this time, she travelled several hours each day across the border to attend school in San Diego, an experience that would go on to have a profound impact on her work. Her furniture, textiles, wearable pieces, sculptures, and site-specific installations involve a spectrum of natural materials, from beeswax to human hair and stitch together complex ideas of gender and nationality.

Beyond her individual practice, Aguiñiga frequently collaborates with artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances, and collective community-based art projects. These ‘performance crafting’ happenings explore notions of divided, transnational identities, political and human rights issues at the US-Mexico border, and the power of art to weave communities together. Aguiñiga’s currently exhibiting in the group show, ‘Making Time at Craft Contemporary’, alongside newly commissioned border-justice pieces for ‘Intergalactix: Against Isolation’ at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, which examines the violence generated from physical and conceptual borders.