Saturday, March 26: Marking Time, Shifting Space by Victoria Manganiello

Marking Time, Shifting Space: New Work by Victoria Manganiello

Curated by Audra Lambert

“Only through our awareness of change and the possibility of loss can something like awareness of cultural heritage grow up. So there is no cultural heritage without the non-place.” 
Pascal Gielen, The Murmuring of the Artistic Multitude 

Marking Time, Shifting Space consists of (1) large scale installation and (8) woven paintings indicating an evolution in recent work by artist, Victoria Manganiello (b.1989). Referencing the manual presence the artist exerts throughout the hands-on process of weaving her own canvases, Marking Time, Shifting Space reveals the process of exercising control over the physical structure while also pointing to the reclamation of manual labor in a post-Industrial society and the recognition of textile arts as both a continued cultural heritage tradition and modern, experimental art form. Continuing the experimental precedent set by artists Sheila Hicks and Fransje Killars, Manganiello invigorates hand-spun and hand-dyed fabrics with creations that evince abstract dynamism and lyrical composition. By both revealing and obstructing the artist’s hand throughout the process of weaving on a floor loom, a long and laborious process which Manganiello opens to improvisation and intuitive re-arranging, these works implicate the structural hierarchies complicit both in the artist’s role as narrator of a woven text and the relative place of textile art within the art world pantheon as a whole. Manganiello deftly explores the physical spaces omitted within the weaving of the textile, hinting at historical revisionism while showing the power of the control she wields on pattern and composition. By opening a new space for dialogue through overt lapses in space and time, Manganiello subverts our expectations of fiber, revealing it as a medium open to creative experimentation. Spaces can be made non-spaces, time can be marked through its absence and expectations of cultural heritage can be subjected to new interpretations. In Marking Time, Shifting Space the tension between the manual labor necessary to produce the finished piece and the resulting complex compositional arrangement reveal the complex relationships woven into the very fibers of Manganiello’s intricate paintings. 

http://www.victoriamanganiello.com/