Lecture, exhibition feature textiles

What kind of cultural omen is the recent renaissance in the popularity of polyester fabric?

A few clues might come from the 1998 Ruth Ketterer Harris Memorial Lecture sponsored by UW–Madison’s Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection. The April 23 lecture will feature Gerhardt Knodel, director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Renowned internationally for his large art fabric installations, Knodel will discuss what inspires him and how he researches his work. In doing so, he will explore how cultures throughout the world use textiles, and how textile history can prompt new ways of thinking about the medium and its meanings.

Knodel’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, including New York’s American Craft Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Kyoto City Museum in Japan. His lecture, free and open to the public, will begin at 5:45 p.m. in L140 Elvehjem. For more information, contact Mary Ann Fitzgerald, 262-1162.

If Knodel’s own art represents a macrocosm of textile art, an exhibition in UW- Madison’s Gallery of Design presents an alternative approach. In “Threads on the Edge,” artists Bird Ross, Beth Blahut, Elizabeth Vitale and Susan Avila employ contemporary imagery and technology to redefine the intricate medium of embroidery. The exhibit will be on display in the gallery, 1300 Linden Drive, until April 30. Gallery hours are Tuesday- Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., and Sunday. 1-4 p.m.