Among the most intimate and daily links we have to art can be found in the garments we wear. Below, a texture play of spring pieces pulls a thread from the tapestries and abstracted crochet works of “Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction,” opening at the National Gallery of Art on March 17. Works include Ed Rossbach’s 1977 Damask Waterfall—a wrapped maze of cotton welting cord, commercial fabric, as well as plastic and satin damask woven into a rush of movement and surprising color—and Andrea Zittel’s White Felted Dress #3, which evokes the visceral connection fiber art has to our everyday life, and to ourselves. “I hand-felted all my garments (Fiber Form Uniforms),” she said in an interview last year, “because I liked that the technology of felting (rubbing wool covered with hot soapy water with my hands) meant that I was literally using my body to make a covering for my body.”
Here, from braided golden cuffs to twined cowboy boots, fiber fancies abound.
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