Threads of Tomorrow: The Bold Comeback of Textile Art

THE GROOVE

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I am Maria Brito, an art advisor, curator, and author based in New York City.

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Textile art, long relegated to the realm of “craft” and overlooked by the traditional art market, has made a dynamic comeback. This is probably the year where I’ve seen the most textile art taking center stage in commercial galleries, art fairs, museum shows and auctions.

Contemporary artists are increasingly exploring textiles as both medium and message, bringing forward diverse cultural narratives, exploring new levels of creativity, and challenging hierarchical definitions of “fine” art versus “applied” art. This revival is reshaping the art market, creating new spaces for underrepresented voices, and bringing renewed attention to an ancient medium that, in many ways, is uniquely suited to address the themes and tensions of our time.

Western art traditions often dismissed textiles as domestic work associated with women. Twentieth century artists like Anni Albers in the Bauhaus movement began challenging these classifications, merging textiles with modernist ideals and bringing them into the gallery space. Despite these efforts, textiles largely remained in the periphery of the art world until recently.

The resurgence of textile art is largely driven by artists' desire to engage with issues of identity, memory, and cultural heritage. As globalization and digitization reshape our world, several artists are gravitating towards textiles as a way to convey cultural specificity and connection to place, and to show us that work done manually matters.

In 2024 alone, there were three important exhibitions in major American museums. (And no, this wasn’t orchestrated - curators don’t talk to each other about their upcoming projects for fear of losing a loan that may go elsewhere.)

The biggest of these exhibitions “Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction,” started at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2023 before traveling to the National Gallery of Art earlier this year. It is now set to open this week at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and then it’ll come to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2025. It includes more than 130 textiles by artists, ranging from Anni Albers to Liz Collins to Jeffrey Gibson, and establishes a nexus between textile works and modern art.

The second show was “Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art” at The Met in New York, which showed objects made by Andean artisans from 1000 B.C.E. to the 16th century; juxtaposed with four 20th-century modernist women who were influenced by Andean textiles: Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Olga de Amaral and Lenore Tawney.

The third exhibit “Threaded Visions: Contemporary Weavings from the Collection” at the Art Institute of Chicago, showcased contemporary artists like James Bassler and the duo María Dávila and Eduardo Portillo.

This past May, Faith Ringgold’s 1991 piece “Dinner at Gertrude Stein’s: The French Collection Part II, #10”, sold for $1,572,500 at Sotheby’s. It was created using acrylic on canvas and ink on stitched printed and dyed fabrics, which Ringgold made central to her practice.

Many textile artists use their medium to subvert traditional expectations around “women's work.” Tschabalala Self, for instance, creates collaged portraits of Black women using fabric to emphasize the different ways in which identity is constructed and deconstructed. This September, dozens of objects made of cast paper (another crafting technique in which cotton fiber paper is formed using a mold) were presented by Self’s “Bodega Run,” in collaboration with Two Palms at the Armory Show and it was probably the most photographed and talked-about booth of the fair.

Also in September, Kasmin Gallery opened the first New York solo show of Nigerian Nengi Omuku, who paints on strips of sanyan (a traditional pre-colonial Yoruban fabric), stunning and poetic images of complicated political issues that people in Lagos are facing.

Likewise, Diedrick Brackens, who had a large solo show at Jack Shainman in New York last April and a smaller one at Various Small Fires in Dallas in October, uses weaving techniques to explore Black and queer narratives, showing how textiles can become powerful tools for visibility and inclusion.

Two weeks ago in Paris, to coincide with Art Basel Paris, Fondation Cartier debuted a stunning retrospective of Olga de Amaral, the 92-year-old Colombian artist who has been pushing the boundaries of textiles for five decades.

I’d be remiss not to mention more of Sheila Hicks, who this year had a show at Espace Louis Vuitton Séoul in Korea and has a retrospective opening across two cities in Germany next week at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop. Hicks has been working with textiles for over 60 years and is in the collection of every major museum in the United States. She began her exploration of fiber arts in the late 1950s, following her studies at Yale University under Josef Albers, and has continued to innovate and expand the boundaries of textile art ever since. Hugely influential and celebrated for transforming fiber into a powerful sculptural medium that challenges traditional boundaries between art and craft, Hicks’ vibrant, textured installations - often monumental in scale - redefine textile art, blending elements of painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Erin M. Riley, Jackie Milad, Billie Zangewa and Brent Wadden are also reinventing textiles along with many more artists that I couldn’t possibly cover here.

The physicality of textiles also allows for engagement with audiences beyond the visual, inviting tactile and spatial experiences. In our digital age, textiles offer something real and tangible: a counterbalance to virtual, screen-based experiences. This sensory richness allows viewers to connect with the artwork on a primal, human level, creating a renewed appreciation for the skill, patience, and labor embedded in these creations.

The momentum for textile art continues to build, showing no signs of slowing down. As contemporary artists push boundaries, exploring textiles as both a medium and a narrative form, the market for these works is evolving in exciting ways. I’ve recommended and placed several textile pieces in my clients’ collections, as I believe they not only add richness and depth but also give a unique historical and cultural resonance that enhances any collection.

The medium's future looks promising as both an art form and a market category, with its ability to connect on a deeply human level and ensuring its continued relevance for years to come.

Ralph Waldo Emerson used to say: “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” Breakthroughs in business and art always come from unconventional thinkers. Strange combinations that intrigue others and unusual solutions to problems - most often happen after periods of experimentation. Read why you should always be experimenting.

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