Saw a short documentary last night on the quilters of Gee's Bend. Gee’s Bend is a small rural community nestled into a curve in the Alabama River southwest of Selma, Alabama. Founded in antebellum times, it was the site of cotton plantations.... During the Great Depression, the federal government stepped in to purchase land and homes for the community, bringing strange renown — as an "Alabama Africa" — to this sleepy hamlet.
The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. The women of Gee’s Bend passed their skills and aesthetic down through at least six generations to the present. In 2002, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in partnership with the nonprofit Tinwood Alliance, of Atlanta, presented an exhibition of seventy quilt masterpieces from the Bend. The exhibition, entitled "The Quilts of Gee’s Bend," is accompanied by two companion books, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, and the larger Gee’s Bend: The Women and Their Quilts, both published by Tinwood Media, as well as a documentary video on the Gee’s Bend quilters and a double-CD of Gee’s Bend gospel music from 1941 and 2002.
The "Quilts of Gee’s Bend" exhibition has received tremendous international acclaim, beginning at its showing in Houston, then at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the other museums on its twelve-city American tour. Really cool stuff although unfortunately, there are only a few images on their website, and they don't even seem to be the really nice ones. Google image search turns up some more though.
great stuff.
about the land
Thought you would like it. Should have checked your page first.
We actually saw three short docs last night, the first on Vincent Scully, professor of History of Art in Architecture at Yale University. This mostly consisted of him walking around the Yale campus and talking about the buildings. Then the Gee's Bend one, and then a slightly longer one on Sol LeWitt which had a big focus on the huge wall drawings installation at Mass MoCA (up for the next 25 years!) Made me really want to take a trip up there. A cool mix of stuff that you wouldn't think would make sense together but totally did.
Paula Cooper had a funny bit in the LeWitt movie talking about the first time she showed one of his wall drawings. It was a very early soho show and the invite had to describe where it was so that people could find it (one block south of Houston and two blocks west of Broadway.) Then when the exhibition was over she called Sol up in a panic asking "what should I do with it?" He said, "oh, just paint over it" but she couldn't get her head around that idea.
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- jim 5-21-2009 2:20 pm
great stuff.
- bill 5-21-2009 2:30 pm [add a comment]
about the land
- bill 5-21-2009 2:54 pm [add a comment]
Thought you would like it. Should have checked your page first.
We actually saw three short docs last night, the first on Vincent Scully, professor of History of Art in Architecture at Yale University. This mostly consisted of him walking around the Yale campus and talking about the buildings. Then the Gee's Bend one, and then a slightly longer one on Sol LeWitt which had a big focus on the huge wall drawings installation at Mass MoCA (up for the next 25 years!) Made me really want to take a trip up there. A cool mix of stuff that you wouldn't think would make sense together but totally did.
Paula Cooper had a funny bit in the LeWitt movie talking about the first time she showed one of his wall drawings. It was a very early soho show and the invite had to describe where it was so that people could find it (one block south of Houston and two blocks west of Broadway.) Then when the exhibition was over she called Sol up in a panic asking "what should I do with it?" He said, "oh, just paint over it" but she couldn't get her head around that idea.
- jim 5-21-2009 3:01 pm [add a comment]