Moroccan carpets, modern design, exhibition
To date, various sources that inspired Modernist art have been discussed, such as Japanese colored woodcuts and katagami, East Asian ceramics and furni-ture, African sculptures and the phenomenon of so-called “primitivism”. But Moroccan carpets, an art practiced by women, is still waiting to be discovered in terms of how it interacted with 20th century European and US painting and the possible analogies have not yet been discussed. Today, carpets made by Mo-roccan nomads or tribes bring to mind Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly or Sean Scully. In the early 20th century, they fascinated artists such as Paul Klee, Vassily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. A critical inquiry into North African culture and its Islamic influences as well as Moroccan carpets thus takes us to the very root of European avant-garde art. Islamic iconoclasm inspired the Berber tribes of the Maghreb to opt for radically abstract depictions and a completely free approach to color and shape, some-thing that to our eyes today seems utterly modern. The exhibition will therefore address the very general question of the basic conditions for art, its origins and the path to abstraction. In the age of globalization and, on the one hand, the related increasing domi-nance of purely Western ideas with, on the other, the concomitant radicalization of Islam, it is highly topical to take this subject as a basis for viewing the intellectual linkages and cultural interaction along the interface of Orient and Occident. And in so doing, to broach a dialog and highlight perspectives for the future. The exhibition at Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich – focusses on the rich collection of Moroccan carpets assembled by Munich-based architect Professor Dr. Jürgen A. Adam. Down through the decades of research he undertook on clay buildings in Morocco he assembled one of the world’s most important private collections of such works.
Size: 4842px × 3128px
Photo credit: © Manfred Glueck / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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