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“Using textiles is not just about an aesthetic, it’s something that furthers my conceptual concerns in regard to how identities are constructed, about how a body is just a patchwork of experiences, a patchwork of projected ideas,” says 31-year-old, New York- and New Haven-based Tschabalala Self. Tschabalala Self in her studio © Christian DeFonte Hicks also features in the Whitney’s current survey show, Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950-2019, which positions 1960s textile art alongside the work of contemporary artists. At Artsy, purchases of textile works rose 48 per cent from 2019 to 2020, while a broad spectrum of fabric-based endeavours – from the modernist weavings of Anni Albers and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, to the fibre sculptures of 87-year-old Sheila Hicks and the quilts of Alabama’s Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective – have been the subject of high-profile shows.
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Zangewa’s rise has dovetailed with a growing recognition for fabric-based pieces as fine art. I’m in charge of my stories and how I tell them Courtesy Billie Zangewa and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and London Zangewa in her Johannesburg studio © Carole Desbois. And I don’t want to be.” Re-establishing the power of textiles is fundamental: “I’m in charge of my own narrative and that’s a very powerful statement, to say that I’m a black woman and I’m in charge of my stories and how I tell them.” Although it was suggested she switch to cotton as a stronger fabric, she prefers to work with silk: “I like delicate and sensitive, that’s who I am. I don’t think I’ll ever be cotton. The space doubles as her studio, and is where works such as 2018’s Vision of Love and 2020’s Heart of the Home were created. “When I first started out, people were like, ‘Oh, she’s handy with a needle’ and I was just put in the area of craft, of a woman’s pastime,” she says from her home in Johannesburg. Soldier of Love, 2020, by Billie Zangewa © Courtesy Billie Zangewa and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and London This autumn, she will open further shows in London and Seoul – where prices for her work will range from $75,000 to $150,000 – as well as at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.ĭate Night, 2017, by Billie Zangewa © Courtesy Billie Zangewa and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and Londonīody and Soul, 2021, by Billie Zangewa © Courtesy Billie Zangewa and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and London Described as “One of Africa’s Most Closely Watched Artists”, she joined Lehmann Maupin gallery in May 2020 with a solo show in New York that saw her prices jump by 25 per cent. Its edges slightly frayed, the work is a personal story of motherhood – mundane and magical.ĭate Night is a “silk painting” by 48-year-old, Malawi-born Billie Zangewa. The scene feels at once intimate and ephemeral. A woman’s legs stretch to the end of the bath children’s toys are dotted around there’s a glass of red wine to one side and an iPad propped up on the other, showing an episode of Game of Thrones. In Tate Modern’s current collection display – positioned next to a wall of Guerrilla Girls’ posters and a bold Barbara Kruger – is a depiction of a bathroom.