From June 27th until September 27th the Museo del Tessuto in Prato will host the only Italian leg of The Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art, a contemporary Chinese textile art exhibition organised by the China National Academy of Painting from the Tsinghua University Academy of Art and Design and achieved by the Institute of Fiber Arts within the Faculty of Public Art at the China National Academy of Painting and the Association of Chinese Artists in Italy.
Housed in the two large exhibition rooms on the first floor, the exhibition presents a careful selection of fiber artworks, on display to the Italian public for the first time. The artworks represent twenty of China’s best institutes and art schools, including the Institute of Textile Art Research of the China National Academy of Painting, the Tsinghua University Academy of Art and Design, the China Academy of Fine Arts and the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.
The thirty works on display express the artists’ different perspectives on Chinese history and culture, testifying to the extraordinary progress experienced by textile art in this country in recent years. Some of the artists are already established in China and others are promising young academic students.
The artists featured in the exhibition have participated with their artworks at various editions of the International Biennial of Fiber Art ‘From Lausanne to Beijing’. Since 2000, this has been the most important and influential event in the world for all the artists who work with textile materials.
Wool, silk, cotton, manipulated in a variety of ways according to the perception of the various artists, are combined with materials of different origin – paper, wax, metal and bamboo – to create three-dimensional objects that rise up like veritable sculptures in the Museum or fall from above like gauzy veils that float in space, alongside tapestries that truly look like paintings on canvas.
The Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art is part of the Chinese government’s foreign cultural exchange programme organised by the country’s Ministry of Culture.
The exhibition held at the Museo del Tessuto is the first stop in Italy on a world tour that has already visited ten countries including the United States, Brazil, Australia, Europe and Mexico.
