{"id":5417,"date":"2018-03-01T12:11:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T11:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sculpture-nature_local.test\/?p=5417"},"modified":"2019-03-27T09:53:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T08:53:42","slug":"sheila-hicks-sculpture-textile-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sculpture-nature_local.test\/en\/sheila-hicks-sculpture-textile-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheila Hicks: Sculpting Textile"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Centre Pompidou has invited American artist Sheila Hicks for Lignes de vie<\/i><\/a>, a retrospective retracing sixty years of this pioneer in textile art. Whirlwinds of textures and colored waterfalls share the exhibition space with more intimate and smaller pieces called Minimes<\/i>. Here is an invitation to dive into a universe of vegetal forms, ancestral gestures and color vibrations, and an opportunity to look back at some of the artist\u2019s recent or current outdoor projects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning
\n<\/i><\/b><\/span>Born in 1934 in Nebraska, in the heart of the United States, Sheila Hicks studies painting at the Yale School of Arts and Architecture (Connecticut, United States). There, she is strongly influenced by the teaching of textile artist Anni Albers, painter and color theorist Josef Albers, and art historian George Kubler, one of the greatest experts in Pre-Colombian and Ibero-American art, famous for his book The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things <\/i>(1973). Numerous trips to South America (Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, etc.) and five years spent in Mexico have fed her curiosity for pre-Colombian textile art; by meeting indigenous weavers and by visiting pre-Inca archeological sites, she discovers many techniques and materials.\u00a0 <\/span>This is the starting point of a lifelong research on fibers, threads and fabric: Sheila Hicks observes materials, how they move, she dissects their language and creates her own, adding color, which is fundamental in her work.\u00a0Her work consists mostly in bas-reliefs, tapestries and small and large-scale sculptures. Each one of her interventions, whether indoors or outdoors, involves a reflection and a dialogue with the physical and architectural context of the site. The sculpture and its environment communicate, so much so that she calls her installations \u00ab\u00a0environmental sculptures\u00a0\u00bb. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lignes de vie at the Centre Pompidou<\/i><\/b><\/span>
\n<\/span>For the exhibition Lignes de vie<\/i>, Sheila Hicks chose to work with curator\u00a0Michel Gauthier because \u201che is not a fabric specialist\u201d. This choice illustrates her refusal to limit weaving to decorative arts. \u201cIn the 60s and 70s, she wanted to be able to navigate freely between design, decorative art and art. Back then, one had to choose his\/her line of work and technique.\u00a0 <\/span>This straddling probably did not help get her the recognition she deserved\u201d, explains\u00a0Michel Gauthier.\u00a0<\/span>The exhibition starts outside the museum: the walls of the Galerie 3 (first level) are partially visible from the street along the Center. The color of the bundles of Sentinelles de safran<\/i> catch the eye, and once inside the gallery, one cannot help but be tempted to touch. Because Sheila Hicks\u2019 work should be touched, felt, experienced, which unfortunately is not allowed in a museum. Swirls of thread fall out of the ceiling, colors explode, shapes respond to each other. At times, one feels like in a tropical forest, surrounded by vines, tree trunks, boulders, streams\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n