Use of Fabric
Artworks that use cloth as a material, from sewn and stuffed sculptures and draped canvas to quilts, clothing and fabric installations.
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About
Painters have always worked on fabric, since canvas is woven linen or cotton, but in the 20th century artists began to treat cloth as a material in its own right. Robert Rauschenberg hung a real quilt and pillow smeared with paint in Bed (1955). Sam Gilliam took his stained canvases off their stretchers from the late 1960s and draped them from ceilings and walls, and Louise Bourgeois made stitched heads and figures from old clothes and linens late in her career.
Fabric brings memory and the body with it. The quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama, including Loretta Pettway, pieced bold compositions from worn work clothes. Yin Xiuzhen builds small cities inside suitcases from used garments, Do Ho Suh sews translucent full-scale replicas of rooms he has lived in, and Ernesto Neto stretches soft membranes into walk-through spaces. In fashion, Roberto Capucci sculpted silk into pleated, architectural gowns.
