| Event Name: | Social Fabric |
| Description: | Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) presents the Social Fabric exhibition at Rivington Place, in which textiles are used to explore labour, capital, colonialism and international trade. In the 19th Century Karl Marx's account of the cotton industry tracked fifty years of boom and bust and the effects this had on workers in Britain and its colonies (and in particular India). Social Fabric cross references historical and contemporary accounts, focusing on works by two artists Sudhir Patwardhan and Alice Creischer, presented alongside extensive archival material.
Alice Creischer's installation Apparatus for the Osmotic Compensation of the Pressure of Wealth during the Contemplation of Poverty tracks the threads that connect a worldwide circuit of production and consumption, cycles of investment, disinvestment and decline. Inspired by a trip to India, the work looks at the economic and social impact of European colonialism and subsequent globalisation. The craze for Indian Chintz caused protest amongst Spitalfields weavers in 1719 and devastated whole sections of its textile industry. This led to Gandhi's choice of the spinning wheel as a symbol of decolonisation, and caused Nehru to comment that - ‘the history of cotton and textiles is not only the history of growth of modern industry in India, but in a sense it might be considered the history of India.'
Since the mid-1970s, Sudhir Patwardhan has depicted Mumbai and its urban proletariat. His painting Lower Parel (2001) shows ‘Girangaon' (mill village) the place where the cotton mills that transformed the city's economy and led to the Indian industrial revolution were located. By the 1970s textiles employed one in three of the city's workers and brought in migrants. New social and cultural institutions evolved around street theatre, poetry and music and it was a hub for left politics. This painting depicts the area after the mills closed down in the early 80s, superimposing different urban strata - the defunct factories, new small scale enterprises and high rise luxury apartments.
These two complex works are examined through an extensive display of archival loans and artist interventions, including Company Paintings, Indian Chintz, original journals from Marx, films, and recordings of mill workers' testimonies.
Alice Creischer
Born in Gerolstein (1960), she studied Philosophy, German literature and Visual Arts in Düsseldorf. A key figure of German political art movements in the 1990s, Alice Creischer has produced collective projects, publications and exhibitions. She is also co-curator of such paradigmatic exhibitions Messe 2ok (1995), ExArgentina (2004) and The Potosi Principle (2010), Creischer's curatorial practice correlates with her work as an artist and theorist.
Sudhir Patwardhan
Based in Thane, near Mumbai, he held his first solo exhibition at Art Heritage, New Delhi, in 1979. Sudhir Patwardhan has held solo exhibitions in Mumbai, Thane, New Delhi and Calcutta and participated in many group exhibitions including the Festival of India touring to George Pompidou Centre, Paris and to New York and London (1982-86) and Aspects of Modern India Art, Oxford (1982). His paintings are in many public and private collections including The Gallery of Contemporary Art, Kochi; Glenbarra Art Museum, Japan and the Herwitz Family Collection, USA. |
| Type of Event: | Art Shows - Events |
| Event Agenda: | Thursday 19 January - Saturday 10 March 2012
With Alice Creischer and Sudhir Patwardhan
On the occasion of Social Fabric Afterall organises an artist talk with Alice Creischer und Andreas Siekmann in collaboration with Iniva. |
| Event Location: | Iniva |
| Event City: | London |
| Type of Venue: | Cultural Center |
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| Event Start Date | 19-Jan-12 |