tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post680605336408613397..comments2024-01-29T00:22:36.258-08:00Comments on e y e C O N T A C T: Another contribution from our man in Hamilton, Peter Dornauf.John Hurrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07411877334096071312noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-10979576309943325742012-09-11T17:46:41.466-07:002012-09-11T17:46:41.466-07:00These repeatedly worked motifs of the anonymous fe...These repeatedly worked motifs of the anonymous female with wide hips standing amongst flowers and trees warrants closer analysis. Have voiceless disenfranchised women in the 19th & 20th centuries subversively stitched the Earth Mother/Life Cycle narrative?Lesley Turnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03033681471800410670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5265813806993497215.post-87570545876244477802008-03-31T15:24:00.000-08:002008-03-31T15:24:00.000-08:00Enjoyed reading your review Peter, you raise some ...Enjoyed reading your review Peter, you raise some very important points that seem to be missing from the exhibition. What concerns me is the lack of reference to Rozsika Parker's 1984 discussion & book: 'The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine'. As an aside, and in line with a point made by Ozenfant in 1931 about the breakdown of the art hierarchies between applied & fine arts, Parker mentions Sophie Tauber as introducing the painter Jean Arp to embroidery and notes that Arp's contribution to the 1st issue of a Dada magazine, July 1917was an embroidery! ...Altho' stereotypically dismissive of it as "outside culture", Tauber & Arp did utilize the medium to good effect to subvert set traditions, and so have many others since.<BR/><BR/>Also there is no mention By Stalker of other work attached to the exhibition blurb, for example, of Rosemary McLeod's book 'Thrift to Fantasy', which covers similar territory. This is a surprise given this is an academic research project making claims about women's work. Yet the Weekend Herald's [29/3/08] story in Canvas Magazine on the professionalizing of Op shops can refer to several other academic studies in the field.<BR/><BR/>At Te Tuhi gallery there is an installation in the current show 'Land Wars', where the Australian Pat Hoffie includes local craft work: 131 knitted & crocheted blankets. Hoffie acknowledges the contribution of the guild in the adjacent wall text, where the blankets sit piled up like cargo in a container ship, and represents the plight of the 131 Afghani refugees from the Tampa.<BR/><BR/>History & a nod in reference to prior sources is not a hard thing to do. It seems as if this Hamilton exhibition is re-inventing/discovering the stitching-wheel, and calling it subversive.Deborah Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009897918455052557noreply@blogger.com