STITCHES: Scènes, corps, décors

Stemming from the knot as the symbolic figure of connectivity and constraint, but also the elementary pattern of fabric, the collective exhibition "Stitches: Scènes, corps, décors" looks at the use of this ductile material on the Swiss artistic scene in recent decades. From suture stitch to sewing stitch, carnal and woven materials respond to each other, interweaving the private, scenic and social environment. If the integration of textile in 20th century's art history constituted a major component in the reversal of the so-called "dominant categories" – whether it be the upheaval of artistic and aesthetic hierarchies, feminist emancipation or Western decentering – what is the situation today? Questioning the appeal of textile in contemporary art practices, as well as its subversive power, the exhibition reflects on the close relationship that this material holds with the body and its spaces of representation. By contrast and affinity, the works form ties and create a temporary joint ‘community’ that nourishes a formal yet tactile and narrative dialogue between abstraction and figuration, ready-made and know-how, stages, bodies and decors. With 35 artists and collectives meet in a nodal exhibition linking intimacy and extimacy, constraint and liberation, emancipation and domestication.