© Useful Art Services
Previous Image
HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art brings together two seemingly contrasting materials.
13.12.2023—20.5.2024
Lower Exhibition Hall
While textiles are associated with warmth and flexibility, ceramics formed from soft clay radiate a cool fragility. Yet both media bring to life an aesthetic language that shifts between hard, soft, unwieldy, and flowing. The materials, shapes, and significance of the selected works reveal a broad spectrum of ambiguity, vagueness, and simultaneity.
The exhibition showcases the work of around 40 artists from Austria and all over the globe, whose artistic practice draws on craft techniques such as embroidery, knotting, and weaving, as well as sculpting, wedging, and firing. The sculptures, installations, and painted works, which also include embroidered images, patchworks, and tapestries, show a vast range of artistic and interdisciplinary approaches that combine visual and applied arts, architecture, music, and digital space. These pieces offer an insight into production methods, ateliers, and workshops, as well as cross-disciplinary collaboration. Here textiles and ceramics hold cultural significance for communities; they have become intertwined with economic and political systems. Alongside the materials’ characteristic features, the exhibition considers feminist ideas, explorations of the body, questions of cultural appropriation as well as gender stereotyping.
The exhibition showcases the work of around 40 artists from Austria and all over the globe, whose artistic practice draws on craft techniques such as embroidery, knotting, and weaving, as well as sculpting, wedging, and firing. The sculptures, installations, and painted works, which also include embroidered images, patchworks, and tapestries, show a vast range of artistic and interdisciplinary approaches that combine visual and applied arts, architecture, music, and digital space. These pieces offer an insight into production methods, ateliers, and workshops, as well as cross-disciplinary collaboration. Here textiles and ceramics hold cultural significance for communities; they have become intertwined with economic and political systems. Alongside the materials’ characteristic features, the exhibition considers feminist ideas, explorations of the body, questions of cultural appropriation as well as gender stereotyping.
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© MAK/Kristina Wissik
© Gui Gomes
© Gui Gomes
© Georg Petermichl
© kunst-dokumentation.com/Manuel Carreon Lopez
© kunst-dokumentation.com/Manuel Carreon Lopez
© The Estate of Dorothea Tanning/Adagp, Paris; crédit photographique: Georges Meguerditchian – Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP; réf. image: 4N08278; diffusion image: l’Agence Photo de la RMN
© The Estate of Dorothea Tanning/Adagp, Paris; crédit photographique: Georges Meguerditchian – Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP; réf. image: 4N06753
© MAK/Georg Mayer
© Martin Janda
© Jonathan Greet
© Goshka Macuga, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2023
© Rob Battersby
© Roman März
© Useful Art Services
© Zdeněk Porcal – Studio Flusser
© MAK/Georg Mayer
Previous Image
ARTISTS
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Hildegard Absalon, El Anatsui, Anna Andreeva, Ranti Bam, Maria Biljan-Bilger, Cosima von Bonin, Geta Brătescu, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Verena Dengler, Noa Eshkol, Gelatin, Sonia Gomes, Nilbar Güreş, Sheila Hicks, Klára Hosnedlová, Dorota Jurczak, Kapwani Kiwanga, Peter Kogler, Beate Kuhn, Denisa Lehocká, Goshka Macuga, Jonathan Meese, Hana Miletić, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Robert Morris, Ann Muller, Ulrike Müller, Michèle Pagel, Lucie Rie, Willem de Rooij, Camila Sposati, Laurence Sturla, Dorothea Tanning, Rosemarie Trockel, Franz Erhard Walther, Ingrid Wiener.
CURATORS
Bärbel Vischer, Kustodin MAK Sammlung Gegenwartskunst
Curator, MAK Contemporary Art Collection
Antje Prisker, Special Projects
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Andrea Lenardin Madden / a l m project
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Atelier Dreibholz
PROGRAM
The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive program of talks and events. Workshops for children and adults offer visitors the chance to work side by side with artists and learn about the textile and ceramic techniques used in a range of artistic approaches. We embroider out of protest, dabble in soft sculpture, and experiment with clay as a co-creative medium. In a series of talks, we look at how textiles and ceramics can be used to explore socio-political themes and will be organizing discussions with some of the contemporary artists featured in this exhibition. Curator-guided visits, dialogue tours as well as our regular exhibition tours offer unique insight into the works on display.
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Hildegard Absalon, El Anatsui, Anna Andreeva, Ranti Bam, Maria Biljan-Bilger, Cosima von Bonin, Geta Brătescu, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Verena Dengler, Noa Eshkol, Gelatin, Sonia Gomes, Nilbar Güreş, Sheila Hicks, Klára Hosnedlová, Dorota Jurczak, Kapwani Kiwanga, Peter Kogler, Beate Kuhn, Denisa Lehocká, Goshka Macuga, Jonathan Meese, Hana Miletić, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Robert Morris, Ann Muller, Ulrike Müller, Michèle Pagel, Lucie Rie, Willem de Rooij, Camila Sposati, Laurence Sturla, Dorothea Tanning, Rosemarie Trockel, Franz Erhard Walther, Ingrid Wiener.
CURATORS
Bärbel Vischer, Kustodin MAK Sammlung Gegenwartskunst
Curator, MAK Contemporary Art Collection
Antje Prisker, Special Projects
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Andrea Lenardin Madden / a l m project
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Atelier Dreibholz
PROGRAM
The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive program of talks and events. Workshops for children and adults offer visitors the chance to work side by side with artists and learn about the textile and ceramic techniques used in a range of artistic approaches. We embroider out of protest, dabble in soft sculpture, and experiment with clay as a co-creative medium. In a series of talks, we look at how textiles and ceramics can be used to explore socio-political themes and will be organizing discussions with some of the contemporary artists featured in this exhibition. Curator-guided visits, dialogue tours as well as our regular exhibition tours offer unique insight into the works on display.
Media
Dorota Jurczak, Bronski, 2023, Courtesy of the artist and KIN, Brussels © Useful Art Services
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT. Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Georg Mayer
HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art in the front: Ann Muller, Die fleißigen Totengräberinnen und ihr Werkzeug [The Hardworking Female Gravediggers and Their Tools], 2020/2023; Die fleißige Totengräberin und ihr Ring [The Hardworking Female Gravedigger and Her Ring], 2020 © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT. Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art Dorothea Tanning, Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, 1970 © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art Gelatin, Alle für Alle (Ferdinandeum) [All for All (Ferdinandeum)], 2021–2023 © MAK/Georg Mayer
HARD/SOFT. Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Georg Mayer
Ulrike Müller, Rug (con tacón), 2018 © MAK/Georg Mayer
MAK Exhibition View, 2023 HARD/SOFT: Textiles and Ceramics in Contemporary Art © MAK/Kristina Wissik
Sonia Gomes, Casa alugada (Entre Pérola e Vergalhão series), 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, Paris, New York © Gui Gomes
Sonia Gomes, Casa alugada (Entre Pérola e Vergalhão series), 2022 Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, Paris, New York © Gui Gomes
Ingrid Wiener, Dr. Müllers Kabelfrühling [Dr. Müller’s Cable Spring], 2009/10 Courtesy of Charim Galerie © Georg Petermichl
Ann Muller, Die fleißigen Totengräberinnen und ihr Werkzeug [The Hardworking Female Gravediggers and Their Tools], 2020, exhibition view, [beneath bottles—Fledermaus in Bar du Bois], Angewandte University Gallery Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna, 2020 © kunst-dokumentation.com/Manuel Carreon Lopez
Ann Muller, Die fleißigen Totengräberinnen und ihr Werkzeug [The Hardworking Female Gravediggers and Their Tools], 2020, exhibition view, [beneath bottles—Fledermaus in Bar du Bois], Angewandte University Gallery Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna, 2020 © kunst-dokumentation.com/Manuel Carreon Lopez
Dorothea Tanning, Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, 1970 © The Estate of Dorothea Tanning/Adagp, Paris; crédit photographique: Georges Meguerditchian – Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP; réf. image: 4N08278; diffusion image: l’Agence Photo de la RMN
Dorothea Tanning, Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202, 1970 © The Estate of Dorothea Tanning/Adagp, Paris; crédit photographique: Georges Meguerditchian – Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP; réf. image: 4N06753
Rosemarie Trockel, MADE IN WESTERN GERMANY, 1987 MAK, T 11609 © MAK/Georg Mayer
Nilbar Güreş, Red, Old Woman, Yellow, Black Eyes, Brown, Pride Belt, Blue, Drilled Ears, Silver, Carpet Seeds, Blue, Teenage Acne, 2014 MAK, GK 669 © Martin Janda
El Anatsui, Terra Firma, 2020 Courtesy of El Anatsui and October Gallery, London © Jonathan Greet
Goshka Macuga, Who Gave us a Sponge to Erase the Horizon?, 2022 2 Courtesy of Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle and Goshka Macuga © Goshka Macuga, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2023
Ranti Bam, Ifas, 2023 Exhibition view, Liverpool Biennial 2023 Courtesy of Liverpool Biennial © Rob Battersby
Jonathan Meese, DR. KÜRBISSERL STEHT IMMER UM HIGH NOON AUF! [DR. PUMPKINY ALWAYS RISES AT HIGH NOON!], 2020 Courtesy of Galerie Krinzinger and Jonathan Meese © Roman März
Dorota Jurczak, Beat, 2023 Courtesy of KIN Brussels and Dorota Jurczak © Useful Art Services
Klára Hosnedlová Untitled (from the series To Infinity), 2023 Exhibition view To Infinity, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, 2023 Courtesy of the artist and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin © Zdeněk Porcal – Studio Flusser
Verena Dengler, Sponsors, 2001–2014 MAK, GK 666 © MAK/Georg Mayer