Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers, Trude Guermonprez, and Their Students
Co-curated with Julie Jean Thomson, Weaving at Black Mountain College: Anni Albers, Trude Guermonprez and Their Students is the first exhibition solely devoted to the medium at the College.
Our approach in the exhibition and the book emphasizes several key themes:
Design - The weaving program, as developed by Anni Albers, was Black Mountain College's longest-lasting and most successful design program. Albers's pedagogical approach emphasized experimentation with materials and structures, which students then applied to the creation of artworks or to the design of practical textiles.
Interdisciplinarity - Black Mountain College was a liberal arts college, and the weaving program existed within this interdisciplinary environment. About 10% of all students to ever attend Black Mountain took at least one weaving class, and the vast majority of these students did not major in or specialize in weaving.
Influence - The weaving program had a palpable influence on the fields of weaving and textile design in America at midcentury. Approaches developed at Black Mountain by Albers, her colleagues, and students were disseminated nationally through traveling exhibitions, articles, and the post-Black Mountain careers of students and teachers, including Albers, Trude Guermonprez, Andy Oates, Lili Blumenau, Else Regensteiner and Lore Kadden Lindenfeld.
The Role of Trude Guermonprez and Others - Anni Albers was not the only person to teach weaving at Black Mountain College. The College enjoys a reputation as a confluence of creative teachers, visitors, and students, and the same holds true in the weaving program, which has its own cast of weaving luminaries.
The exhibition runs from September 29, 2023 – January 6, 2024 at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC. [link]
We concurrently authored a book of the same name, published by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and distributed by Yale University Press. [link]
For more on my approach to exhibition design for this project, see this page.
