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Image of a large fiber artwork stretched between the ceiling and the floor

Ariadne's Thread

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Image: Kira Dominguez Hultgren, The Eagle Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree, 2022, CA wool, grandma's silk, artist's hair, LA jute, PVC, wood, 96 x 105 x 36 inches (variable). Courtesy of the artist


 

 

April 14-May 27, 2023

Opening Reception: Friday, April 14

5-7:30pm, Art Alliance

 

The Philadelphia Art Alliance at University of the Arts is pleased to present Ariadne’s Thread, a group exhibition of four contemporary artists working in fiber: Caroline Achaintre, Kira Dominguez Hultgren, Sophie Stone and Margo Wolowiec. The exhibition’s title most obviously references the Cretan princess in Greek mythology, but the phrase is also significant in logic, referring to the process of methodically solving a problem through multiple means. As such, it reflects tracing the thread of an idea, back and forth, to its ultimate endpoint: the creation of radical artworks. Each of the artists in Ariadne’s Thread use fiber to signify the world in political and material ways.

Caroline Achaintre (b. 1969, Toulouse, FR) was raised in Fürth, Germany and, after training as a blacksmith, completed degrees at Chelsea College of Arts, London and Goldsmiths, University of London. Achaintre has worked in installation, drawing and ceramics but she is most known for her enormous, almost garishly expressionist hand-tufted works, which draw heavily on animism, expressionism, carnival traditions and tribal apparitional masks with the potential to both attract and repulse. Using a tufting gun spontaneously and intuitively to shoot strands of yarn through the back of tightly stretched canvases, she creates large-scale woolen sculptural tapestries whose irregular forms suggest fantastical trophies, alternately evoking silky hair, coarse fur and even runny, dripping paint. These theatrical images function both pictorially and concretely. Achaintre has exhibited internationally including at Lothar Fischer Museum, Neumarkt, Germany; Kusthause Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, Germany; CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; Fondazione Guiliani, Rome; MOCO, Montpellier, France; Belvedere Museum, Vienna; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Dormunder Kunstverein, Dortmund, Germany; Museo de Arte Precolombiano Casa del Alabado, Quito, Ecuador; BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom; Tate Britain, London; and Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy. Achaintre's work belongs to international collections that include the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Belvedere Museum, Vienna; TATE, United Kingdom; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Arts Council Collection, United Kingdom. She is represented by This is Arcade, London and Art: Concept, Paris. Achaintre lives and works in London.

Kira Dominguez Hultgren (b. 1980, Oakland, CA) studied French postcolonial theory and literature at Princeton University, and performance and fine arts in Río Negro, Argentina. With dual-degrees in fine arts and visual and critical studies from California College of the Arts, her works are informed by material and embodied rhetorics, re-storying material culture and weaving as a performative critique of the visual. Her weavings present multi-ethnic traditions (Chicanx, Punjabi, Hawaiian) and several modes of construction from open loom weavings to jacquard imagery, "constructed cultural affiliations sutured together." Dominguez Hultgren has exhibited her work at the de Young Museum, headlined UNTITLED, ART San Francisco, was featured in Architectural Digest, and reviewed in the New York Times. She has had three solo shows with Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco; a solo show at Heroes Gallery, New York; and her first solo museum show at the San José Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Group exhibitions include Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York; the Roswell Museum; and Kent State University. Her fellowships and residencies include the Headlands Center for the Arts, CA; Facebook, CA; and Gensler Architecture; San Francisco. Dominguez Hultgren is an Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is represented by Eleanor Harwood Gallery

Sophie Stone (b. 1987, Massachusetts) received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009. Stone's works are a mixture of Arte Povera and fiberwork, suturing new and used materials like cotton or acrylic rugs, sisal fans, plastic beads and painted cardboard together into accretions positioned between true functionality and installation. The reversible works can be installed on the wall or floor, playing with dualities of "painting," "rug" or "wall decoration" tropes. By repurposing the old and the odd, these works gain domestic histories. Stone has been featured in exhibitions at White Columns, New York; Halsey McKay, East Hampton, NY; Safe Gallery, New York; Company Gallery, New York; The Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Nina Johnson, Miami; M+B, Los Angeles; Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles; Romeo, New York; Shoot the Lobster, New York; Eli Ping, New York; and Nicole Klagsbrun, New York. Stone has been written about in Art News, Artforum, Artsy, Frieze Magazine and Hyperallergic. She lives and works in New York.

Margo Wolowiec (b. 1985, Detroit, MI) received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2013. Wolowiec's jacquard works have topical references embedded within, creating an atmospheric digital metaverse in which news headlines clash with virtual reality. Wolowiec has had solo exhibitions at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; California College of Arts, San Francisco; McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, CO; Marlborough Contemporary, New York;  Library Street Collective, Detroit; Harpers, New York and East Hampton; Lisa Cooley, New York; Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia; and Laura Bartlett Gallery, London. Internationally Wolowiec's work has been exhibited at Galeria Casas Riegner, Bogatá; Eduardo Secci Gallery, Florence; Brand New Gallery, Milan; LUCE Gallery, Torino, Italy; Granpalazzo Palazzo Rospigliosi, Zagarolo, Italy; National Gallery of Kosovo; and DukSung Women's University, Seoul. Her works are in the public collections of the Detroit Center for Photography, MI; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; San José Museum of Art; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; MacLean Collection, Libertyville, IL; and the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, San Francisco. Wolowiec currently lives and works outside of Detroit. She is represented by Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.

 

woven fiber artwork hanging on a wall
Caroline Achaintre, Raspel, 2016, hand tufted wool, 102 x 75.5 inches. Courtesy Beth Rudin DeWoody

 

 

 

Images
Woven fibers artwork stretched between three walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven fiber artwork stretched between three walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven semi-circular fiber artwork stretched across three walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven semi-circle fiber artwork anchored across three walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close-up view of woven multi-fiber artwork

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close-up view of woven multi-fiber artwork with yarn, ribbon and tubing

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close-up of woven multi-fiber artwork with yarn and tubing

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven semicircle artwork stretched and anchored across three walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls with another visible through a doorway

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two woven fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation image of brown woven fiber artwork anchored across two walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation image of two woven fiber works--one standing to the left and hanging across two walls on right

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven red and orange firework on one wall and a stretched brown and wood fiber work on another

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of gallery with three fiber works on display

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of gallery with three fiber artworks on display

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation image of two woven fiber artworks installed on either side of pocket doors

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber artworks installed on either side of large doorway

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two woven fiber artworks in foreground and large windows in background

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven fiber artwork with wood base in forground, large windows in background

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Close-up image of white fiber flower part of larger fiber artwork

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of large fiber woven artwork hung on wall

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adding walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two large fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of large fiber artworks in foreground and smaller one visible through doorway

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two large fiber works, a tufted one to the left and a woven mixed fiber work to the right

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two large multi-colored tufted fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two smaller fiber artworks hung on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two smaller woven fiber artworks, hung on adjoining walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of three woven artworks hanging in a row

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two woven artworks, one rectangle, another half circle shaped hanging in a wall

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two woven artworks on a wall, one rectangle, the other a round shape

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of four fiber artworks hanging along a long wall

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of three fiber artworks, two in foreground, one in background

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven artworks, two on wall in foreground, part of one visible in background

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of artwork composed of multiple pieces of fiber secured together

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls, one with board and white paint, the other of multiple mats woven together

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of there fiber artwork pieces, two hanging on opposing walls and one laid on the floor

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of gallery with four fiber artworks displayed, three on the walls and one on the floor

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view three fiber artworks, two hanging no the wall and one displayed on the floor

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of fiber artworks displayed across two gallery spaces

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two fiber works hanging on two different walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

installation view of fiber artwork on floor in foreground and two other works in background

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of three fiber works on three different walls

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of two corresponding silver fiber artworks, one hung on the wall and the other laid on the floor beneath

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of fiber artwork made of delicate woven metal, strings and scraps of fabric

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Installation view of woven fiber artwork with beads and a palm fan incorporated into it

Installation View. Photo: Joseph Hu.

Woven fibers artwork stretched between three walls
Installation view of woven fiber artwork stretched between three walls
Installation view of woven semi-circular fiber artwork stretched across three walls
Installation view of woven semi-circle fiber artwork anchored across three walls
Close-up view of woven multi-fiber artwork
Close-up view of woven multi-fiber artwork with yarn, ribbon and tubing
Close-up of woven multi-fiber artwork with yarn and tubing
Installation view of woven semicircle artwork stretched and anchored across three walls
Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls with another visible through a doorway
Installation view of two woven fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls
Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls
Installation image of brown woven fiber artwork anchored across two walls
Installation image of two woven fiber works--one standing to the left and hanging across two walls on right
Installation view of woven red and orange firework on one wall and a stretched brown and wood fiber work on another
Installation view of gallery with three fiber works on display
Installation view of gallery with three fiber artworks on display
Installation image of two woven fiber artworks installed on either side of pocket doors
Installation view of two fiber artworks installed on either side of large doorway
Installation view of two woven fiber artworks in foreground and large windows in background
Installation view of woven fiber artwork with wood base in forground, large windows in background
Close-up image of white fiber flower part of larger fiber artwork
Installation view of large fiber woven artwork hung on wall
Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adding walls
Installation view of two large fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls
Installation view of large fiber artworks in foreground and smaller one visible through doorway
Installation view of two large fiber works, a tufted one to the left and a woven mixed fiber work to the right
Installation view of two large multi-colored tufted fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls
Installation view of two smaller fiber artworks hung on adjoining walls
Installation view of two smaller woven fiber artworks, hung on adjoining walls
Installation view of three woven artworks hanging in a row
Installation view of two woven artworks, one rectangle, another half circle shaped hanging in a wall
Installation view of two woven artworks on a wall, one rectangle, the other a round shape
Installation view of four fiber artworks hanging along a long wall
Installation view of three fiber artworks, two in foreground, one in background
Installation view of woven artworks, two on wall in foreground, part of one visible in background
Installation view of artwork composed of multiple pieces of fiber secured together
Installation view of two fiber artworks hanging on adjoining walls, one with board and white paint, the other of multiple mats woven together
Installation view of there fiber artwork pieces, two hanging on opposing walls and one laid on the floor
Installation view of gallery with four fiber artworks displayed, three on the walls and one on the floor
Installation view three fiber artworks, two hanging no the wall and one displayed on the floor
Installation view of fiber artworks displayed across two gallery spaces
Installation view of two fiber works hanging on two different walls
installation view of fiber artwork on floor in foreground and two other works in background
Installation view of three fiber works on three different walls
Installation view of two corresponding silver fiber artworks, one hung on the wall and the other laid on the floor beneath
Installation view of fiber artwork made of delicate woven metal, strings and scraps of fabric
Installation view of woven fiber artwork with beads and a palm fan incorporated into it
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