And a side dish of needlework to go

This week’s wander around the web led me to Sotheby’s.  I’d drop into reputation-making art venues if I lived near any.  Instead, I rely on virtual visits to keep me  abreast of how the material world is changing as I age in it.

Sotheby’s didn’t disappoint.  A rummage through their catalog for “needlework” unearthed the 2013 sales results for 18^th and 19^th century embroidery.  They performed well,  with pieces raking in between ₤250 and ₤35,000.  I’ve made a mental note to handle my embroideries more carefully.  In the future they might yet hold some value for a yet-to-be-born  great-great-grandchild, struggling to pay university fees.

An auction at Sotheby's

My hunt for embroidery also dredged up a work, which comes under the hammer at Sotheby’s later this month, by Iranian artist Farhad Ahrarnia. It’s an inconvenience, I know, but you’ll have to click through to see it.

BEAUTY IS THE SILENCE OF RUINS V doesn’t claim to be embroidery.  Ahrarnia  printed a digital photograph on fabric and added needles and stitching. The work is really a collage, or that is what my college art lecturer would have called it.  A contemporary gallery might label it a multi-media piece; a digi-kid would call it a “mash up.”   To me it’s a mishmash: photo cum Malevich cum thread. I don’t know what to make of it.

A bit more surfing lands me at the Rose Issa Gallery in London, where I read  an artistic statement for Farhad Ahrarnia:

Through the act of appropriation and needlework, Ahrarnia explores the various tensions that arise when contemporary Iranians attempt to negotiate and reconcile deep-rooted traditions with the force and consequences of modernity. His practice exists at the cusp of craft and informal architecture, whereby he applies the core principles of architecture as a means to probe the semiotics of culture and power in society. 

As an embroiderer I find the phrase “act of appropriation” interesting.  The artist wants me to understand the “semiotics of culture” i.e. the signs of culture and power.  That’s pretty heavy stuff. But then with contemporary art, I find, it’s often the stuff in the catalog that makes the work “interesting”   or even more important, comprehensible.  

I chuckle to myself. Just weeks ago, I blogged about  embroidery being co-opted by advertising to convey subliminal messages. I'm on to something. 

Is Ahrarnia’s co-opting technique ground-breaking in the art world?  Not really.  A few years back, I stumbled across a photographer in my hometown that did something similar.  

 

Photo and embroidery by Annette van Waaijen

 Annette van Waaijen embroidered underwear on her tasteful photographs of (previously) naked women sitting around a swimming pool or dressing.They sold out.

Photo with embroidery by Annette van Waaijen

By “appropriating” embroidery, these two artist-photographers use thread as a “shocking” material.  One doesn't expect a traditional medium, in the context of digital modernity. I’ll grant you Ahrarinia’s message, once it’s been explained,  is ”deep”, while van Waaijen’s is breezy. I leave you to decide if either would co-opt your wall space or wallet.

And then, there is Michael Raedecker, a Dutch painter working in London, who combines embroidery with acrylic. 

Hydrengeas by Michael Raedecker

His uses embroidery more subtley. Thread works with the paint, giving texture, much as as impasto might. Based on an exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague a few years ago, I suspect Raedecker is probably not bad as an embroiderer either. 

Taken together, these three artists bring home to embroiderers, once again,  a very hard reality. To be crass, much contemporary embroidery, on its own, doesn’t garner the artistic acclaim or cold cash that these combo works have achieved.  

Boetti’s canvases and antique samplers aside, in today’s multi-billion-dollar art market, needlework is more of a condiment or a side-dish. It is not a staple for an artist's existence.  To be sure,  interesting exceptions crop up, but that’s something for another blog.