Delineate - Die Neue Linie—Selene States Presents Her Curation Of Bauhaus Textile, Fashion And Costume Designs At Loughborough University
Image Courtesy of Bauhaus
From 5 November-3 December, artist Selene States will be holding an exhibition featuring Bauhaus dress, costume and textile works at the University’s Martin Hall Gallery.
DELINEATE will feature works highlighting the paradigm of reproduction in Bauhaus design, combining 12 new artistic commissions and installations, licensed Bauhaus re-editions and 12 mounted fashions.
An exhibition featuring Bauhaus textile, fashion and costume designs curated by artist Selene States.
Founded during the Weimar era, the Bauhas was Germany's most highly influential art school in the 20th century.
The Bauhaus centenary in 2019 excited growing curiosity about what they wore at the Bauhaus, yet there seems to be little consensus and much extrapolation on its fashions.
One of the problems is that few original Bauhaus garments survive; most studies of Bauhaus fashion rely heavily on archival photographic sources or written accounts to examine the dress practices of the Bauhäusler/innen.
Meanwhile collections often feature decontextualized reproductions of textile designs.
Alongside States’ private collection of re-editions of Bauhaus textile masterpieces licensed by the Anni Albers & Gunta Stölzl foundation, the DELINEATE exhibition features an extensive collection of reproductions of historical Bauhaus dress and textile artefacts informed by the radical design and dress practices around the Weaving Workshop and Bauhaus Stage.
At the heart of the exhibition of fashion, costume and woven works is States' hand-made collection of fashions modelled after sewing patterns from the renowned Bauhaus journal 'Die Neue Linie'.
The reproductions of these historical Bauhaus designs, which States' rediscovered doing comparative studies for her practice-based PhD at the Bauhaus University Weimar in the archives of Lipperheide Costume Library (Berlin, German) and the Commercial Pattern Archive (University of Rhode Island, RI, USA), draw on her practice-based research into vernacular craft practices and historical sewing methods.
The dress collection is constructed from States' extensive collection of authentic interwar textile artefacts and appropriated 20th century Bauhaus textile design reproductions that delineate a circuitous history of appropriation and reproduction.
The show also features artistic collaborations with international experts engaging in practice-based research into Bauhaus traditions of mask-making and weaving.
Specializing in traditional Fastnacht wood-carving, German-American sculptor Jessica Twitchell showcases an edition of three iconic Oskar Schlemmer masks from the Bauhaus Stage modelled with States' dress collection.
A collaboration with Wilde Studio, a slow textiles atelier based in Stoke-on-Trent made up of the Bulgarian-English Wilde sisters will involve natural dyer Katrina dying silk and cotton fibres, woven by Nadine on a traditional treadle loom into uncut bands, to be assembled by States into an evening wrap from a 'Die Neue Linie' pattern.
The accompanying displays and artistic installations delineate the abstract compositions and spatial transformation of 'Die Neue Linie' patterns and highlight how these blueprints of fashion have been excluded from the Bauhaus canon as anonymous “women’s work”.
Celebrating how the concept of reproduction has shaped generations of makers bringing together arts and crafts, the show DELINEATE retraces a radical history of design reproduction that questions how authenticity is embodied in art and design collections.
Featuring Bauhaus textile, fashion & costume designs reproduced by
Collier & Campbell
Christopher Farr
Selene States
Jessica Twitchell
Wallace + Sewell
Wilde Studio
Curated by Selene States
Selene States
Selene States is a British-American artist and dress studies scholar. Featuring appropriated historical objects, her work critically translates nostalgic narratives of history and retrograde models of (re)production.
Her practice-based ‘Pantsuit’ PhD at the Bauhaus University Weimar examines women 'wearing the pants' and involves making collection of historical trousers based on sewing patterns of the interwar period.
She holds a diploma in Fine Arts from the State Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe. She has presented her research at FIT and Parsons in New York and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Her videos and installations have featured at the Milton Keynes Gallery, l’Aubette Strasbourg, and Kunsthalle Baden-Baden among others.
Supporters
This exhibition is funded by the Bauhaus University Kreativfonds and a National Lottery Project Grant from Arts Council England, with support from LU Arts and Modern Painters New Decorators.
