The exhibition The Splendor of Textiles presents artistic textiles in the wider context of contemporary art and focuses the attention of viewers on a field of creative work that in recent decades has lain outside the principal zones of interest  of leading exhibition institutions. Both the splendor of the title, associated with brilliance, richness and power, and the presentation in a national gallery of art have the goal of returning textiles to their rightful place in the orbits of contemporary art.

project within the exhibition The Splendour of Textiles

A collaborative project between Joanna Malinowska and Christian Tomaszewski was originally commissioned by Performa’09 and later presented at Nottingham Contemporary. The project explores how the future was imagined under the Communist regimes of the former Soviet Bloc by investigations through the lenses of architecture, music, fashion and style. The project also incorporates other elements related to a diverse range of Eastern Block phenomena, including the Soviet space program, sci-fi film and literature, and a journey to the site of the mysterious 1908 explosion over the Tunguska River Valley in central Siberia.