Critic’s Pick:
The imposing brutalist exhibition space designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha for Galeria Leme gains a white-washed, free standing cross-shaped wall structure to accommodate delicate geometric textile artwork and a video animation made by Buenos Aires-based artist, Jessica Mein. The exhibition is centred on a decade-long investigation into the physicality of image-making which uncovers the artist’s family’s heritage as lacemakers and embroiderers. Making use of obsolete found materials such as hemp spice bags, Mein methodically opens and deconstructs the original weave to create new textile forms and patterns. The obsessively reworked fabrics are stretched over visible wooden frames and the artist often painstakingly inserts new threads by hand into the loosened weave, adding colour and creating movement. This is the case in Desborde, 18 (2018), a vertical frame covered by an overall white loose mesh through which run large black and blue vertical zigzags made from coloured cotton threads. In other works, the artist covers sections of the textile pieces with acrylic glue and rubbings of different surfaces, to create a complex layering of patterns and textures. In the overall indigo corner-piece Desborde dobra (2018), the two parts that comprise it were glued together and then pried apart leaving behind imprints of this action.
- Camila Belchior
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