The Japan Society in NYC has an exhibit of boro. Some of you may remember previous posts about boro - the incredible stitched art created from dire poverty. Click here to read the old post:
http://www.dianesavonaart.com/blog?offset=1505440803297&reversePaginate=true
Each garment in this show is hung from the ceiling with an internal light. This lighting references traditional Japanese paper lanterns while giving the impression of ghostly patchwork figures floating in front of you.
(Below) I couldn’t capture the ethereal atmosphere in the gallery…
Boro (literally translated as rags) is the heavily patched and mended clothing of northern Japan. Here’s a wee bit of background to help you appreciate boro: people were so poor that each family could generally afford only ONE new garment (or blanket) each YEAR. that’s not per person - that’s per family. Yet they spent money to get the cloth dyed indigo blue.
So every piece of clothing was worn and patched and handed down from one generation to the next to the next. These pieces are truly living history.
This show is the first time I’ve seen so many children’s garments.
One section of the exhibit displays modern fashion which was influenced by boro (Below)
The single light inside this tent-like construction (Below) creates a mirage-like structure.
Next to the tent is a display explaining the history of the textile in the tent (Below)
So….the original, extremely fragile fabric is now encased between 2 layers of translucent cloth.
(Below) Here fragments of the original cloth overlap random threads and printed language, so that the fragments look like language too…
An explanation from the show:
(Below) One room has a table with shoes, gloves and sewing bundles. The bundles contain every precious scrap of cloth a Northern women had . You can see one of these bundles in the DETAIL. I once bought such a bundle at a Japanese temple flea market. Some of the scraps were composed of tiny cloth fragments sewn together to form a slightly larger, more usable scrap.
Cloth layers reveal the past, just as layers of tile and brick reveal ancient civilizations (or, in this case, the previous flooring of a nearby shop).
Boro hold a profound, heart-breaking beauty. As a society, we tend to appreciate art made by the famous, the well-known. Boro is art created because survival is not enough. (yeah, “survival is not enough” is from Station Eleven, which I just read).
Boro Textiles: Sustainable Aesthetics is at the Japan Society until June 14
Location: 333 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017
Gallery Hours: Tues—Thurs, 12—7 PM; Fri, 12—9 PM; Saturday & Sunday, 11 AM—5 PM
Closed Mondays and on major holidays.
Oh - all those boxes I was constructing? The show was cancelled, the boxes will sit in my living room for now.
Contact me at dianesavona@aol.com