The 5th Year of Textile Art of Today brought about new stories, virtual reality, and new experience

Special thanks for this article to Ľudovít Petránsky, curator of exhibition in team of Textile Art of Today  https://www.danubiana.sk/en/vystavy/100

Recognised Slovak artists Andrej and Martin Augustín have again prepared a spectacular display of what is the most interesting textile artworks created recently all over the world. The kin tandem of these two respected artists has dashed the traditional concept of textile as wall “carpets” or decorative needlecraft and turned towards the digital technologies as proved their world première of Virtual Space, part of the international exhibition Textile Art of Today at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in Čunovo near Bratislava (held from 9 Sept. to 11 Nov. 2018). The unique conception of textile works of art and their coupling with modern technologies attracted thousands of visitors and stirred deserved interest and admiration of both the lay and expert communities.      

Grand Prix for the Netherlands

Who hit the nail on the head? It was certainly the Dutch artist Marian Bijlenga. There are hundreds of them on her large size (9 x 4 m) work of art. She hit them so precisely, skilfully but above all with such invention that it also attracted attention of judges of the 5^th Year of the International Triennial of Textile Art of Today. The jury led by the brilliant Slovak artist Jozef Bajus living in American Buffalo awarded her the Grand Prix of Božena Augustínová. ”They are spatial drawings” comments her works Marian. “Instead of drawing them on paper I place them in space and the principal material is textile. Dots, lines and contours fascinate me, as they delimit the empty space by their rhythmic movement.” Her large size pattern with title Sampler Dots Large seen from distance seems painted but if you come closer it reminds of pinterest photographs. They make impression of thematic collections from of a notice board called crossroads of life. And if you come even closer you will find out that they are small pictures placed several centimetres in front of the wall.  The pictures are made of yarn, horsehair, and tiny wood sticks arranged into small compositions. Marian chooses pieces of reality and creates a new one, artistic, noble and maybe immobilized. Her installation is the biggest at the Triennial and attracts great attention.

Virtual Space

But the Triennial at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in Čunovo also offers many additional stories of modern textile. There are 121 of them chosen by curators from1000 applied works by 400 artists from 49 countries of five continents. Andrej and Martin Augustín along with the curator of the project, textile artist Júlia Sabová prepared an extremely varied show in a well-balanced quality of the most inspiring items from the world of modern textile art. Virtual Space which offers for the first time worldwide a unique presentation of textile artworks in the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum was undoubtedly the biggest attraction. Visitors are able to teleport to an artistic planet where they find themselves in the middle of artworks and become co-authors of this artistic game.  They also can virtually enter the artwork and move within. There are planets with levitating hats reminding the space arks (J. Sabová), textile chapels in forest (B. Cepková), while meeting Che Guevara in an exotic city and a visit to a horror road maze (M. Hromadová) are also possible.

Yes, the artistic game in virtual reality is also an invitation for the emerging young artistic generation because the future of the Textile Art of Today exhibition is precisely in merging of new technologies and the modern textile art.

Next exhibitions of the Textile Art of Today project will be also installed in other prestigious institutions dedicated to art exhibitions:

• Tatranská galéria in Poprad (Slovak Republic)

1 Feb. 2019 – 16 March 2019

• Slovácké muzeum in Uherské Hradiště (Czech Republic)

18 April 2019 – 23 June 2019

• Pesti Vigadó Gallery, Budapest (Hungary)

15 Aug. 2019 – 15 Sept. 2019

• Muzeum Historyczne, Bielsko–Biała (Poland)
• 15 Nov. 2019 – 31 Dec. 2019

Tatra Gallery in Poprad Award: Lucia Seppová (Slovak Republic), MESSAGE, interactive installation, collage, embroidery