Tapta: Flexible Forms
Online Symposium
Held on 5 October 2024
Panel discussion: 'From Wallbound to Spatial: Tapta’s Textile Art in an International Context'
Participants: Greet Billet, Ann Coxon, Ann Veronica Janssens, Marta Kowalewska
Moderator: Liesbeth Decan
#Tapta (pseudonym of Maria Wierusz-Kowalska, born Maria Irena Boyé) was born in Poland in 1926 and came to Belgium as a political refugee with her husband, Krzysztof Wierusz-Kowalski, after taking part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. She studied weaving at the La Cambre National School of Visual Arts, Brussels, from where she graduated in 1949. Shortly afterwards, the couple moved to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), where they lived from 1950 to 1960. After returning to Belgium, Tapta swiftly established herself as an important member of a new generation of artists who sought to redefine sculpture by using textiles and other flexible materials as sculptural elements. In doing so, she simultaneously took textile art beyond the categories of the decorative arts and crafts. She had her first solo exhibition in 1966 at the Galerie Les Métiers in Brussels, after which her work was shown in major exhibitions in Belgium and abroad, including at the 4th International Biennale of Tapestry in 1969 in Lausanne. This exhibition, in which her work was displayed alongside those of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jagoda Buić, Elsi Giauque and Sheila Hicks, encouraged her to continue along the path of unconventional experimentation with textiles.In the 1980s she quite radically changed her materials from woven textiles and cords to neoprene. With this industrially produced rubber she created large black installations that, however, still represent her idea of ‘flexible sculpture’. Tapta died unexpectedly in 1997, just as her native Poland was discovering her work at a major solo exhibition at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, and her monumental sculpture Esprit Ouvert near Brussels North Station had just been inaugurated.
#GreetBillet is an artist living and working in Brussels. She teaches fine arts at the LUCA School of Arts. She is a senior researcher connected to the research group Photography Expanded. In 2019, she earned her PhD in the arts from the KU Leuven, with a dissertation examining “Light as an Artistic Medium.” In her artistic practice, Billet focuses on the representation of light by means of temporary in situ installations, in which rule-based systems play a crucial role. The translation of light into an analogue and digital context is also important in her oeuvre. By combining different media and representations, Billet researches the representation and registration of light in its essence.
#AnnCoxon is a curator, writer and researcher with a long-standing interest and specialism in textile-based practices. For over 20 years she was a curator at Tate Modern where she created numerous temporary exhibitions and collection displays. These included most notably: Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, 2022; Inherited Threads, 2022; Dorothea Tanning, 2019; Anni Albers, 2018, Beyond Craft, 2017, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, 2015; and Saloua Raouda Choucair, 2013. Ann is the author of two books: Motherhood, 2023 and a monograph on the artist Louise Bourgeois, 2010 (both Tate publishing). She has given lectures at the Universities of Cambridge and Leeds and has served as a jury member for ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize, Hong Kong and the International Triennial of Tapestry, Łódź, Poland. She is currently completing a PhD thesis focusing on New Tapestry in Europe from 1960-1979.
#MartaKowalewska is an art historian and critic, curator of exhibitions, and author of texts on art. As chief curator at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź (CMWŁ), she curated the 16th and 17th International Triennials of Tapestry and led the curatorial team, which developed CMWŁ’s anniversary exhibition Departments Open / Departments Closed. Marta has also co-curated various Polish and international exhibitions, including: The Work That Textile Does, Metamorphism: Magdalena Abakanowicz (CMWŁ), 100 Flags for the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage (CMWŁ), Antoni Starczewski: The Idea of Linear Notation (CMWŁ), THREADS OF A NEW SPIRITUALITY - Kosmos Project (Milan), and We Are Textile Culture Net! (Hong Kong). She is a co-author of the book From Tapestry to Fiber Art: The Lausanne Biennials 1962-1995, and also edited the book Magdalena Abakanowicz: Metamorphism; Textile Textures, Multi- threaded Narratives and co-edited Weave Ideas, Antoni Starczewski: The Idea of Linear Notation, and Splendour of Textiles.
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