Savaria - A Vas Megyei Múzeumok értesítője 9-10. (1975-1976) (Szombathely, 1980)
Művészettörténet - Beke László: Kísérleti textil
EXPERIMENTAL TEXTILE LÁSZLÓ ВЕКЕ The following definitions are meant to inform the "public" and challange the "professionals" to argue, to think over their situation. This is why our formulations are sharpened. Talking about experimental textile however, it wouldn't make much sense to try to set up everlasting rules. TEXTILE: a product, resulting from interweaving fibres, fibrous materials. ARTISTIC TEXTILE : aesthetic considerations have a share in its creation and perception. EXPERIMENTAL TEXTILE ART : products, which modify the material, the technical and functional conditions stated in the definition of textile. Its aim is to give new interpretation to textile and a new definition to the notion of it. MATERIAL . Anything that can be shaped and applied as fibre. Organic materials of animal (wool, horsehair, pure silk, etc.) and of vegetal origin (flax, hemp, cotton ; but wattle fence and wicker-work are also textile !). Inorganic materials : asbestos fibre, fibrous glass, gold, aluminium wire, etc. Synthetic fibres have recently been introduced: nylon string, PVC pipe, etc. We may well ask whether the brioche nattée, the chain armour, the lash or plaited hair are textile or not? Is there any material that cannot be spun or woven? (Naturally, what is a finished product for one artist, might serve as mere raw material for an other. A shirt, made of cotton yarn may be used as only one element of a large textile composition. And the other way round : a pile of tow may well be the final result of an artistic process.) TECHNICS, TECHNOLOGY. Traditional technics: spinning, weaving, knotting, knitting, embroidery, felting, printing, dying, etc. Technics mainly dependon the qualities of the given material and on the expected function : thin and flexible fibre results close and pliable textile. The experimenting artist does not regard textile as forever determined by function, technics and material though : freely combining them, he introduces new technics and enlarges the content of textile this way. The production of felt and of paper are very similar —paper dress is also textile. And what about cellophane? Should it not be called textile only because it is produced by different technics? Foil tent and a tent of canvas have the same function ; canvas is woven, just as well as some curtains of synthetic fibre —still nobody would grow tomatoes under nylon laces just because of certain aesthetic considerations. If fibreglass is textile, should sheet-glass not be called textile only because it is stiffer then cellophane of PVC foils? And talking about synthetic materials: PVC lace is not made, but cast, into shape. Investigating technics is impossible without a regadrd to the qualities of the material. STRUCTURE. László Moholy-Nagy uses the following expressinons to describe various appearences of the material : structure (the unaltarable inner construction of the material), texture (the surface, organically following from the structure), handling (the elaborate surface) and pile, orderly or not, following from the juxtaposition of certain elements of material. In the traditional textile structure mainly the first two categories prevail : the structure of the woven material is determined by the perpendicular system of the warps and wefts. Experimental textile, using traditional technics with new materials and new technincs with traditional materials, modifies this situation. It penetrates the existing structures and textures —not only as textile, but also as independent fibre or unorganized mass, treating the material as film or chemically influencing it —, thus thoroughly examining the handling too. The textile composition eypanded in space ' will eften make piles and then, if they are strictly organized, we may call them "structure" instead of "composition". FORM AND MEANING. The form of artistic textile is fundamentally influenced by the chosen material and technics. To point out the dialectic relationship of form and meaning is 325
