Metropolitan State University announces new Textile Art exhibit

Metropolitan State University’s Third Floor Gallery is pleased to present "Tradition and Innovation: Contemporary Textile Art in Kumasi, Ghana."

The exhibit opens Thursday, Jan. 24, with a reception from 4 - 7 p.m. The show continues through Friday, Feb. 22. Gallery hours are Monday - Thursday, 11 a.m - 7 p.m. and Friday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. The gallery is located in the Library and Learning Center, 645 East Seventh Street, St. Paul.

For those unfamiliar, the richly decorated fabrics of West Africa may at first appear simply flamboyant or festive. But social scientists, scholars and philosophers agree that clothing is a complex form of communication. The clothes that we wear often relay messages about our gender, age, marital status and social standing. And even today, among the influx of western garb and growing technologies, many communities in West Africa still continue to produce yardage that incorporates substantive content, dating back countless generations.

The exhibition examines the very notion of communication within Ghanaian textiles while simultaneously celebrating its beauty. The batik yardage by Dorothy Amenuke and the adinkra cloth of the Boakye Family Workshop are highlighted in this sumptuous sampling of African ingenuity.

Upon returning from nine months of research in Ghana, Mary Hark, University of Wisconsin - Madison professor of design studies and guest curator, reflected upon her experience. "I steeped myself in a world where the line between art and daily life is fundamentally blurred," said Hark. "Color, pattern and the presence of cloth permeate everything. Locally produced, richly patterned resist-dyed fabrics are ubiquitous."

Addressing the content of the show, Hark goes on to say: "Both West African batik and adinkra are tied to historic and culturally important traditions. Both ways of working carry ideas specific to the place they are made, and have become universally understood as representing larger, Pan-African ideals. Both are very much alive, able to carry traditional concepts and respond to innovation and new cultural messages. By focusing on the work of two individual studios, the viewer can consider the influence of a particular artist’s hand, rather an anonymous and broad sweep of ‘African’ textiles."

To complement the yards of cloth that will cover the gallery walls from floor to ceiling, Amara Hark Weber, International Hine Fellow with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham, N.C., will contribute an audio and photographic presentation. This project will feature interviews with textile workers and cloth vendors from Kusami.

For more information, contact Erica Rasmussen, gallery director, at 651-793-1631 or e-mail erica.rasmussen@metrostate.edu.