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The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, which opened in 1963, has presented textile-based works since its early years. The museum’s continued focus on this medium is aimed at reexamining, in light of today’s circumstances, the artistic potential and critical perspectives of the works it has shown thus far.

Thirty years have passed since the museum featured the work of Leonne Hendriksen in Beyond Textiles: Four Dutch Contemporary Artists (1996). The recent work by Hendriksen featured here explores the solidarity we need amid the current climate of instability, which became impossible to ignore during the COVID-19 pandemic. The translucent, sack-like modules arranged in a circle represent a community of human bodies held together by mutual support.

With the physicality foregrounded in Hendriksen’s work as a key concept, this exhibition examines approaches to textiles in which materials, structures, and the acts of weaving and sewing themselves acquire symbolic meaning, without relying on figurative forms or motifs.

Two aspects of physicality can be seen in fabric: evocation of the wearer’s body, reflecting fabric’s use in clothing, and evocation of the maker’s body. While kimono are generally appreciated for their patterns, Murayama Yoriko’s work foregrounds their wearable forms, evoking the image of fur draped over the body. Works by Mae Engelgeer, made from hemp cloth that once served as kimono fabric, and Tanaka Chiyoko’s Kesa series both employ a process of cutting and reconfiguring fabric to create new meanings. Hiroi Nobuko exposes thread knots that are usually hidden in the course of weaving, and as traces of cutting and tying actions, they symbolize the value of time and labor as well as the act of reconnection. Extending these ideas to the sphere of the collective, Ari Bayuaji examines the reconstruction of community through the processes of spinning, dyeing, and reweaving.

What we see in these works may ostensibly be nothing more than knots, seams, and layers of fabric. However, these familiar, everyday sights conceal actions that open our imaginations to the society that surrounds us.

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  Leonne HENDRIKSEN, Silence Fragile, 2021, Collection of the Artist
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  MURAYAMA Yoriko, Cloth of Mammal - White Lady, 2017, Collection of the Artist, Photo: Yano Makoto
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  Mae ENGELGEER, Unintended #121, 2024, Private Collection
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  TANAKA Chiyoko, Kesa – Sange Lotus, Petals #97-1, 1997, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Photo: Imamura Yuji
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  HIROI Nobuko, TRACES, 2013, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Photo: Imamura Yuji
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  Ari BAYUAJI, The Ocean is Weaving (L'océan tisse) #2, 2023, Collection of the Artist, Miyajima Kei｜© Ari Bayuaji｜Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery