Tate Modern has announced it will present a major exhibition celebrating the work of textile artist Anni Albers this Autumn.
On display from the 11th October, the exhibition will bring together some of the artist’s most important works many of which will be on display for the first time in the UK.
This exhibition will recognise Albers’ contribution to modern art and design ahead of the centenary of the Bauhaus in 2019 as well as a way to mark Tate’s commitment to showing artists working in textiles.
Born in Berlin, Anni Albers combined the ancient craft of hand-weaving with the language of modern art, finding within the medium many possibilities for the expression of modern life. This display will bring together 350 objects including beautiful small-scale studies, large wall-hangings, jewellery made from everyday items, and textiles designed for mass production to explore the many different aspects to the artist’s practise.
The artist was a student at the Bauhaus in 1922, where she met her husband Josef Albers and other key modernist figures like Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Though the Bauhaus aspired to equality between the sexes, women were still discouraged from learning certain disciplines including painting. Albers began weaving by default, but it was in textiles that she found her means of expression, dedicating herself to the medium for the majority of her career. The exhibition will explore how, here in the school’s vibrant weaving workshop, traditional hand-weaving was redefined as modern art.
The exhibition is organised by Tate Modern and Stiftung Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. It is curated by Ann Coxon, Curator of International Art, Tate Modern and Professor Briony Fer, University College London, assisted by Priyesh Mistry, Assistant Curator of International Art, Tate Modern, with Maria Müller-Schareck, Curator, and Linda Walther, Assistant Curator, Stiftung Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Anni Albers will be on display at Tate Modern from the 11th October until the 27th January 2019. For more information visit: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/anni-albers.