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Green: T he Color
and the Cause
Right:
Ayelet
Lindenstrauss
Larsen
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2009
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fabric marker
12 x 9 x 1.5 in.
T he T extile M useum
W ashington, D.C.
April 1
6
- September 11,2011
textilem useum .org
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Shigeo Kubota
Shape o f Green II,
2009
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T H E T E X T I L E M
U S E U M
’ S T H I R D
color-themed exhibition - after
“R ed” (2007) and “Blue” (2008)
- is double-layered. Curators
Lee Talbot and Rebecca A.T.
Stevens realized that “G reen,”
the show , couldn’t be limited to
pure formalism, no matter the
appeal o f green, the color. The
word has crept into our vocabu-
lary as an environmental term,
not just in architecture and
design but in almost every aspect
o f contemporary life. Yet by
focusing on historic pieces for
their use o f a particular hue and
on contemporary works for
their sociopolitical implications,
they risked turning the show
into a random mishmash.
But it’s not, because o f the
strong works they chose, and
because many cultures, past and
present, have associated green
with nature, linking it, how ever
subtly, to environmental con-
cerns. Thus a fragment o f Per-
sian cloth from the 16th or 17th
century that depicts people
relaxing under flowering trees is
not so different in its feeling for
nature from Jane D unnew old’s
more abstracted 2009 Sacred
Planet digital print series.
Garments present another
ancient/present parallel. The
show includes a late 19th-century
embroidered wom an’s coat
from China in a green-gone-
turquoise and a 19th-century
Persian wom an’s jacket pieced
together from other garments.
From the 21st century is the
S w in g C o a t
(2010-11) by Ala-
bama Chanin, designer Natalie
Chanin’s couture line; like the
Persian jacket, the contem po-
rary coat uses found elements.
Alabama Chanin garments are
made by a Southern community
o f skilled needleworkers, so
both the handwork and this
social commitment speak of
“green” purposes.
This is, as is often the case
with textiles, a show that
rewards slow observation,
attention to details, and subse-
quent thought. That’s the
case even with works that
have striking visual impact at
a distance.
Gyongy Laky’s 2008
A lte r a -
tio n s
is com posed o f letters
forming the words “The Green
Issue,” fascinatingly com plex
structures o f fastened-together
bits o f branches. M etaphori-
cally they imply the truth that
language is constructed; con-
ceptually it’s notew orthy that
she created the work for a 2008
issue o f the
N e w T fjr k T im es
M a g a z in e
devoted to environ-
mentalism. There, “issue”
meant that particular w eek’s
magazine; here, “issue” refers
to the topic or controversy.
Nancy Cohen’s huge paper
and marsh grass installation
0 2 6 a m e r i c a n c r a f t
a u g / s c p n
