The Fabric of Art: Investigating the Relationships of Power Between Fabric & Fine Art Through Frank Stella's 'Black Paintings' (1958-1960)

Abstract

There are two inter-related parts to the hypothesis explored in this research. The first is that it is significant to employ fabric as a medium in a fine art context, and the second aspect argues that female artists who choose fabric as their medium should be recognised as 'artists' rather than as crafts practitioners. I propose that in choosing fabric as a medium and sewing as my method of making art, I am working within the framework of contemporary fine art practice. In his essay 'To Cut is to Think' Germano Celant succinctly described the 'cut' made by artists who choose cutting as their process: The cut of the scissor is like the click of a camera or the whirr of a movie camera, like a stroke of the pencil or paintbrush: all these acts decisively isolate a form or representation, marking a surface that generates a reality. The cut puts an end to the traditional representation of the image, dissolving it and then restoring it as a testimony to the artist's vision and understanding. In this light, the cut confers meaning, and its use unites artists, photographers, designers and tailors, who cut their visions from the magma of their materials, whether these be colour or bronze, fabric or film, metal or wool, wood or canvas (1996, p. 31). My own use of the cut, as the bespoke tailor, reinterpreted fabric as paint and utilized pinstriped fabric as a visual metaphor for relationships of power, pink satin as a symbol of the female inclusion and Frank Stella's Black Paintings as a tool to position my work. Therefore, I would claim that I am working towards a conceptual repositioning of fabric as a medium in fine art.