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‘Critical Cloth’

Hand-stitched paper patchwork lengths.

This was a solo show curated by Deborah Dean (Visual Arts and Exhibitions Manager) at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition comprised textile art works undertaken between 2002-2011 contributing to the Castle’s commitment to be a prime venue for international textile culture (Special Collection of Contemporary Textiles is housed here).

Described by Dean as ‘an ambitious body of work’, Critical Cloth questions the values of late capitalist culture by employing patchwork as a means of critique. Representing Critical Cloth on an international platform through the Transition and Influence Web Gallery, Professor Lesley Millar MBE, described the work as: ‘Patchwork cloths created from newspapers and the detritus of modern life used to reveal and critique aspects of the way we live’ (2012). Each ‘cloth’ is hand-stitched from paper products extracted from day to day living: lottery tickets, scratch cards, newspaper reports, administrative paperwork and pages from a paperback novel. All pieces remain unfinished and on going. The project develops an innovative creative practice alongside theoretical interests exploring ‘intellectual sewing’ as a research model, in particular opening up new possibilities for textile art as a discursive practice.

The rigour underpinning Critical Cloth is reiterated by Dean: ‘... the tasks ... are monumental, pushing the work to a scale of endeavour which makes it ... both sublime and absurd, both excessive and banal, both rigorous and formless’. Critical Cloth was applauded for showing ‘the best kind of conceptual art’ allowing audiences to ‘encounter a fascinating intelligence behind the work’ (Dr Ann Rippen, University of Bristol, http://annjrippin.wordpress.com/). In her seminal survey of textile art, Textiles: The Art of Mankind (2012), Mary Schoeser viewed Critical Cloth as demonstrative of ‘Contradictions, questions and refusals’ that make the work subversive ‘in a traditional ... patchwork format that critiques the desire to have it all’.