Threaded Stories, Stephen Friedman

One of the most enduring and fascinating threads in art history is -  thread itself. Yarnwork and string fibre have captivated artists in the past two centuries - from William Morris to the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop in the 1920s, to the 2013 Venice Biennale exhibitor Yiqing Yin and her exquisite silk thread exhibition In-Between, and the Alison Jacques Gallery’s exhibition of rope artist Sheila Hicks last summer. 

Threaded Stories, the Stephen Friedman Gallery’s winter 2013 exhibition,  takes a closer look at the persistent appeal of this most tactile, plastic and practical of media in a survey of seven artists across three generations. 

Hicks herself takes prime position in the exhibition. She has been working with yarn for over fifty years, experimenting with the possibilities and the material presents. Acier I and Acier II (both 2013) are beautiful examples of her fascination with the textures yielded by embroidery threads in different arrangements. A contemporary of Hicks’s, American conceptualist Fred Sandback’s ultra-minimal yarn sculptures were hugely influential on the 1960s New York art scene – it’s a treat to see them here. 

Look out too for the work of Brazilian born Tonico Lemos Auad. Known for his use of “natural” materials,  in the past Auad has notably sculpted tiny animals from carpet fluff and produced images on bruised bananas. His Procissão Fluvial (2012) is one of our highlights: it exploits the forms that free-moving threads take on of their own accord. 

The youngest artists in the exhibition are Americans Mark Barrow and Ruth Laskey, both of whom produce Modernist-influenced geometric compositions and practice hand-weaving – each in their own way. Laskey began weaving her own canvases out of dissatisfaction with painting materials available to her, eventually abandoning paint altogether in favour of hand-dying linen thread and weaving it directly into the work. The results are reminiscent of eminent German-American artist Josef Albers’ colour studies.

Admission: Free
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