Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists

Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists studies some of the best contemporary art through the lens of craft: the woven carpet. Featuring 30 artists from across the globe, the exhibition shows this object to be a powerful locus of meaning today, one that cuts across issues of design, art, décor, production, and geopolitics.

The “artist carpet” is a form that bears a long and distinguished historical pedigree, from Raphael and Peter Paul Rubens, to Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and Joan Mirò. Yet, Wall to Wall takes as its point of departure a history of art rather than history of medium, focusing on the ways in which these objects advance relevant ideas and practices today. Unlike exhibitions that examine artist carpets through an ethnographic lens detached from the world of art, Wall to Wall proposes that these carpets function in a continuum of modern art history as a critical form that is accelerating in use and application. The exhibition asks the simple question: Why?

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.