It is one of the most wonderful feelings to go see an exhibition not knowing anything about the artist and their work, ignorant of what to expect, and falling head over heels over their work. This is the experience one is likely going to have at the Cartier Foundation’s Olga de Amaral exhibition. Simply titled Olga de Amaral, it is the largest ever organized in Europe, with nearly 80 works made between 1960 and now. And it is absolutely mesmerizing. The colors, the shape, the structures, the use of paint and gold, the weaving - it takes several visits to take it all in and to fully appreciate the power of the artist’s work.
Olga de Amaral is one of the most important figures of the Columbian art scene. To say she is a textile artist is like saying Picasso is a painter. Trained as an architect in Bogota, de Amaral’s medium is textile, but over the 60 years of her career until today, she has vastly expanded the meaning of textile art. She has been continuously experimenting with diverse materials - linen, cotton, horse hair, gesso, gold leaf, palladium, rice paper, etc., as well as different techniques - weaving, braiding, knotting, to create monumental pieces.
It’s during her 1954-1955 stay at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, designed by Eliel Saarinen, that de Amaral became interested in textile art. Still living and working in her native Bogota, she refuses the distinction between painting, installation, sculpture. Her work is all of these at the same time. Sometimes, one does not even see the textile, as in her series Estelas (Trails). In these works, Olga de Amaral takes a rigid cotton structure covered with a thick layer of gesso, sometimes another layer of rice paper, then acrylic paint and gold leaf. What is left is a structure, like sculptures, a sort of golden Stonehenge which invites you to walk around it. The textile becomes no more than the canvas on which she builds her work, like a painter’s canvas. De Amaral developed an interest in color while at Cranbrook Academy. “I live color,” she said. “I know it’s an unconscious language and I understand it.”
In 1996, she started a new series, Brumas (“Mist”). These works are like colorful clouds moving slightly above our heads. Brumas are 3 dimensional panels painted directly on the threads, arranged in simple geometric shapes. These are absolutely mesmerizing works for the use of color, material and shapes. One can spend hours looking at these delicate shapes.
The beautiful scenography by Lina Ghotmeh, a franco-Lebanese architect, highlights the power of Olga de Amara’s pieces. Ghotmeh has created a peaceful landscape of grey slate stones which plays with Lothar Baumgarten’s garden outside of the transparent Jean Nouvel building.
The past two years have seen more and more artists working on textiles and women pioneers finally being recognized as the immense artists they are. It was about time. The discovery is an enchantement.
~Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Olga de Amaral. Fondation Cartier. Until 03.16.25. fondationcartier.com
