The Cartier Foundation announced a major retrospective of the work of Colombian artist Olga de Amaral, an emblematic woman for contemporary art and a pioneer in the use of textiles as a means of artistic expression. This exhibition, which will take place from autumn 2024, promises to take visitors on a rich journey of six decades of evolution and career to explore the broad trajectory of this artist who transformed the landscape of textile art.
Born in Bogotá,Colombia, Olga de Amaral graduated as an architect before discovering her true passion: textile art. After studying at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, Amaral began experimenting with various materials and techniques, managing to challenge the traditional boundaries of weaving.
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Her work has strong roots in the vernacular traditions of Colombia and in pre-Columbian art. She knows how to fuse both things to bring them to contemporaneity resulting in works with a strong meaning, a geometric abstraction, and an imposing three-dimensionality; all this makes her one of the most outstanding women artists in contemporary art today.
Since the 1960s, Olga de Amaral has pushed the limits of the textile environment by increasing experiments with various materials (such as linen, cotton, horsehair, plaster, gold leaf or palladium, etc.) and techniques: weave, knot, braid, and weave threads to create monumental and three-dimensional pieces.
Olga de Amaral’s works move away from an easy categorization and conventional standards, and become pieces that transit between painting, sculpture, installation and architecture.
This exhibition will present a wide selection of works of art by Olga de Amaral, including historical pieces never before showed outside Colombia and recent creations that show her constant artistic evolution.
The exhibition, designed by the architect Lina Ghotmeh, promises to be an immersive experience that will invite the public to dialogue with the memory, the senses, and the surrounding landscape, becoming an unmissable event for those who enjoy contemporary art.
Olga de Amaral has received numerous recognitions throughout her career, including the title “Visionary Artist” by the New York Museum of Art and Design in 2005 and the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019. Her work is in the collections of important institutions such as the Tate Modern, MoMA, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago, consolidating her as one of the most influential women artists in contemporary art.
This art exhibition will undoubtedly be a place of inspiration for artists, curators and art lovers in general, thus reaffirming the legacy of this woman artist as a revolutionary of contemporary art.
