Beyond the needle


The tendency to identify an artist in terms of a single aspect of her/his artistic output limits the degree to which a viewer can appreciate the diversity of the artist’s conceptual, expressive, and material approaches to art making. Classifying an artist as a feminist, minimalist sculptor, abstract painter, or "the one who knits" no doubt enhances the work’s marketability by satisfying consumers’ desires for facile recognizability and sound bites. But disregarding alternative or lesser-known aspects of an artist’s oeuvre that do not conform to or demonstrate an obvious relationship to a signature style sells both artist and audience short.

Ghada Amer and Rosemarie Trockel share knitting/sewing as processes by which they are simultaneously celebrated and misunderstood. Yet, resisting categorization, Trockel’s art has influenced the younger Amer’ in its exploration of different media, in its accommodation of multiple and often contradictory interpretations, and in its avoidance of didactic or theoretical strategies…




Susan Harris