Promoted and organized by the City of Chieri, with the contribution of Regione Piemonte and Provincia Torino, the fourth edition of the Biennial of Fiber Art “Trame d’Autore” (“Author’s Threads”) proposes to make the public aware of the renowned and ancient textile tradition of Chieri through the works of international artists.
The exhibit showcases more than seventy artists weavers from allover the world, whose works have been selected by a jury of experts out of a pool of 150 participants.
Also joining these craftsmen are some artists invited by the City of Chieri to participate in a series of exhibits called “Incontri Monografici d’Artista” (“Artists’ Monographic Meetings”).
The works will be presented in the former Imbiancheria del Vajro, an industrial building with smoke-stack recently restored and fitted as an exhibit site.
The initiative “Trame d’Autore” proposes a broad view of the different expressions of Fiber Art: tapestries, sculptures, textile objects, installations, Art Wear.
Fiber Art, or Textile Art, gathers the research and experiments conducted by the artists, whose expressive tool is fiber. This art form was born at the beginning of the 1900’s with the historical vanguards, when artists rebelled against the palette and chisel in order to experiment with new research materials. Borrowing from the textile artisans’ technique, they begin to create their works with fiber, which thus becomes a tool of linguistic expression, made with or without the loom. However, it will be with the post-vanguard movement, after the 1960’s, particularly in Northern Europe and the United States, that Fiber Art will find its own development, giving birth to trends which technique and content will interact symbiotically producing highly original results.
Today, the materials used range from the most classic to the most unusual: wool, silk, steel, copper, paper, straw, etc.
For this edition of “Trame d’Autore”, thanks to the collaboration of some textile entrepreneurs, the interested artists had the opportunity to create a work with materials produced by the city industries. Within the project, called “Dialoghi Sperimentali” (“Experimental Dialogues”), the Chieri industries meet the artists and the entrepreneurs have donated different types of materials (fabrics, Bandera burlap, trimmings, etc.) to about twenty artists. The resulting artworks are exhibited partly at the Imbiancheria del Vajro and partly at the collateral exhibits.
The prestigious Textilmuseum St. Gallen will put the exhibition up. The museum has communicated its interest in this Biennial, asking for the permission to exhibit in Switzerland, in its own place in summer 2005.