Stoffe im Raum

The textile as an artistic medium is only conceivable within the interconnections of the textile with a cultural and social history, with the development of textile manufacturing processes of handicraft and industrial production, with the global distribution of labor and resources.

The exhibition takes as its point of departure small, textile samples from which the complex systems of fabrics, their materiality, the circumstances of their production, and the context of their use can be read. Using these small sections, the textiles would be able to be analyzed, enlarged, reproduced, and thus become visible and usable again.

The exhibition focuses on sample pieces by women artists from the environment of the Vienna School of Applied Arts (now the University of Applied Arts), the Wiener Werkstätten, the Bauhaus, and the Russian Vchutemas. From there, the exhibition draws connections to works by contemporary artists whose focus is on the textile as a fundamentally political medium that questions the classical notions of "high" art, image, object, and authorship.

The exhibition was initiated by a group of students from the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. It is coordinated by Ulla Rossek (University of Applied Arts, Vienna) and accompanied by Sabeth Buchmann (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna). It takes place in cooperation with the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.