joseph scissorhands: Women Behind the Weave: Bauhaus to Bosphorus

Sunday 24 September 2023

Women Behind the Weave: Bauhaus to Bosphorus

Gunta Stölzl - Tapestry 1923

As with most years there are only a few events staged as part of the London Design Festival which catch my attention and inspire me to want to visit. One such event this year was this exhibition at renowned rug maker Christopher Farr, which was staged to celebrate the production of a new kilim rug from an original 1923 Gunta Stölzl tapestry design. Another to add to the collection of Stölzl's catalogue that Christopher Farr produce so beautifully. I was introduced to the world of Christopher Farr rugs at an exhibition entitled - Form Through Colour: Josef Albers, Anni Albers, Gary Hume (here), which took place in 2014 at Somerset house, in which he artworks of these artists and others were beautifully and faithfully translated into the most sumptuous rugs. I first became aware of the work of Stölzl and the other women of the Bauhaus weaving workshop when researching other art and design practitioners who work from the rigid grid of the weaving loom for my Struktur series. Their abstract, geometric designs proved to be very inspirational. In 1919, the Bauhaus school manifesto welcomed "everyone without regard to age or sex". Despite this, women were directed to towards subjects deemed suitably feminine, fine art, ceramics and weaving. In 1925, Gunta Stölzl became the first female Master at the school as Head of the Weaving Department, and was largely left to experiment. Stölzl transformed the Weaving Workshop from a neglected department into one of its most successful facilities. During her tenure, she shifted the focus from pictorial work to more industrial designs, introducing radical ideas from the world of modern art to weaving, and initiated experiments in materials and methods that transported weaving into the modern age. It is there she mentored her renowned protégé Anni Albers. As well as celebrating the new rug design for Christopher Farr, this exhibition also showcases the work of modern day women weavers in Turkey who produce the kilim rugs for the company. Women Behind the Weave features the work and photographic portraits of a section of these Turkish women weavers. Traditionally weaving is carried out in the home by women in rural villages who are paid on piece work with no guarantee of future income or employee benefits. As a result this has led to a sharp decline in their numbers. Kirkit workshop employs women weavers on regular hours with access to lunch breaks, retirement funds and healthcare schemes. Each of the women in this exhibition were given surplus yarn from the workshop and encouraged to produce their own 1m square original artwork with varying results from the literal to the more imaginative abstract designs. All showcase the skills and craftsmanship for which Anatolian kilims have become famous worldwide however.