FELT exhibitions

Material Explorations

Contemporary Artists work with felt curated by Kathryn Walter
Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, 1999-2000

Felt played a surprisingly large role in the art of the late sixties and early seventies, primarily in the tendency within post-minimalist art practices known as anti-form. Felt, in fact, belongs to a class of materials that also includes lead, rubber, and urethane foam, by which artists were fascinated at the time. The primary appeal of these materials was their limited mutability, their tendency to reveal process without appearing hand formed and their unadulterated "raw" industrial look. They permitted explorations of the new softness in sculpture.
Kenneth Hayes, historian of art and architecture
"Felt and Anti-form" from catalogue, FELT: Social History, Technical Processes, Artists' Projects

Joseph Beuys and Robert Morris dominate the history of felt in contemporary art. However, Canadian artists Michelle Gay, Millie Chen and Evelyn Von Michalofski, Arthur Renwick and architect Kevin Weiss provoke a range of new possibilities as they extend the uses and meaning of this material into new forms. Invited to produce work for this exhibition, each brings diverse experience from their cultural backgrounds and their past work with photography, sound, architecture and digital media. KW

Arthur Renwick bulis.hulap; to stumble onto the beach as a result of circumstances three panels each 183 x 175 cm The appliquéd symbols and borders in black and red felt are characteristic of Northwest Coast native design. Renwick, from the Haisla First Nation combines photography with these traditional methods of representation. Informed by conflicts between tradition and modern thinking, the work explores, through poetic forms, the impact of industry on landscape and culture. Bulis.hulap asserts a contemporary and critical presence and sends a message of cultural survival. KW

Kevin Weiss 21 Objects three display tables: felt, white oak tables each 74 x 119 x 84 cm Weiss has explored the ability to manipulate felt by changing its shape. By molding the material into seven depressions on the surface of three museum-like display units the felt becomes both a lining and a structure. This acid-free, non-tarnishing felt makes a protective surface which in effect becomes the subject of display in this arrangement of absent objects. The soft fabric is intended to protect, but instead it provokes a desire to touch. KW

Millie Chen and Evelyn Von Michalofski Damping Chamber felt, water, sound, enamel buckets chamber: 183 x 152 x 270 cm sound track: 4 minutes, 40 second loop Two bathing suits made from felt hang on the wall and siren-like voices lead the viewer into a chamber lined with felt. The thickness of the fabric muffles the sensations of the gallery outside as the sounds of gurgling and plunging into water mixed with soprano voices evoke an eerie struggle. This theatre of contrariety is a play of puns-damping sounds and dampened suits-in response to felts capacity to absorb both sound and water. KW

Michelle Gay Program die-cut felt strips 610 x 274 cm wall These die cut strips of felt are a waste material that the artist has collected over time. They resemble ticker tape, pixel boards or computer cards, but the excess of material convulses in strange loops like excessive babble produced by what Gay refers to as "a neurosis in the machine". She has created a fictional programming language-a poetic code for a program that does not actually work-it is caught in a flurry of recursive logic. Like felt the work defies order and may be seen as a premonition for a condition beyond the binary. KW

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