FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur
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Verwobene Fäden: Textile Referenzen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst Afrikas und der Diaspora
No full textKERSTIN PINTHER / KERSTIN SCHANKWEILER Entangled Threads: Textile References in the Contemporary Arts of Africa and the DiasporaUnlike the European context, where textiles were rather marginalized within the hierarchy of arts, the production of textiles in many African societies is a specialized and highly appreciated métier. Textiles not only play a crucial role in the negotiation of identities and memories, but their fluidity and genuine adaptability seem to be especially attractive for processes of cultural translation as well as for the contemporary arts. The diverse textile traditions of the African continent are thus important resources and aesthetic references for artists. In this paper we focus on the works of four artists who refer to African textile traditions: Abdoulaye Konaté (“From charm to abstraction”), El Anatsui (“Textile aesthetics in other media”), Ghada Amer (“Embroidery as translation”) and Senzeni Marasela (“Stitching as remembrance and search for new identities”). Their individual artistic approaches to textiles do not only differ with regard to techniques (weaving, stitching et al); they also negotiate different concepts of masculinity and femininity, already inherent in the textile traditions
Bildpostkarten in der visuellen Ökonomie des Black Atlantic um 1900: Kontraste, Bewegung, Migration
No full textPicture Postcards and the visual Economy of the Black Atlantic around 1900: Contrast, Movement, MigrationThe article focuses on the picture postcard as an everyday object of written and visual communication, which, by around 1900, had become a very popular mass medium. Within a time of accelerated mobility and internal as much as external migration, it worked as a cultural signifier within what Paul Gilroy has termed the Black Atlantic. Referring critically to W.J.T. Mitchell’s differentiation between a circulation and a migration of images, the article elaborates the political dimensions that lie in the potential loss of control which processes of migration generally entail; i.e., the risk that the meaning projected onto the given-to-be-seen is always already different from the meaning that was intended or to be communicated – as it is the case with the popular motif of black-and-white couples
Sigrid Schade, Silke Wenk: Studien zur visuellen Kultur. Einführung in ein transdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld. Transcript Verlag. Bielefeld 2011.
Get PDFYo Logo! Zur künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung mit Markenpolitiken unter Netzbedingungen
No full textVERENA KUNI Yo Logo! Net Artists and Branding PoliciesThis paper examines the changes in the strategies adopted by net artists critically engaging with branding policies in the age of global branding. Discussion focuses on two examples whose contents and aesthetics are concerned with textiles. First, Cat Mazza’s Nike Blanket, a net project that campaigns for fair working conditions at Nike’s manufacturing facilities; second, Stephanie Syjuco’s Counterfeit Crochet Project, which calls for making hand-made copies of well-known luxury bags. By demanding a return to traditional women’s handicraft, both projects subvert the desire for luxury goods, which is stimulated by the large fashion and textile companies and greeted with a flood of industrially manufactured counterfeits. Like these corporations, the projects use the Internet to extend their scope of action and reflection. This contribution offers a critical discussion on how far the existing primacy of singular artistic authorship (curtailing the involvement of project participants to legwork) preserves existing hierarchies or indeed enables cooperative labour. It also explores the political effectiveness of these projects which, it is worth remembering, are ultimately situated within the sheltered space of (virtual) art
Textilien im globalen Kontext
Get PDFBirgit Haehnel Textiles in the Global ContextOur issue on textiles in the global context links a critical gender perspective with a critical postcolonial perspective. The stubborn refusal of European cultural institutions to acknowledge textiles in art as worthy material concerns not only definitions of gender, but also a colonial heritage dating from an age when Europe defined its leading role in civilisation in terms of painting. The return to old weaving techniques and printed fabrics from various culturess serves as an aesthetic resource for critical reflections on gender identity, (colonial) history, and processes of racialisation. Interestingly, postcolonial artists use white cloths to metaphorically stage the dominance of white norms and values, and to render whiteness both visible and criticisable (Haehnel: DFG Research Project, TU Darmstadt). The heterogeneity of the interdisciplinary contributions to this issue plainly reveal the pressing need for further research
