Handicraft as a motif in art

Historical motif, subversive strategy and staged materiality - the many manifestations of handicraft in art are the theme of this exhibition. In the form of a pointed dialogue between historical and current positions, it spans an associative arc from the 19th century to the present.
Whether it was fishermen's wives knitting in the dunes or net menders at the harbor - handicrafts have long played an important role in life on the coast. With industrialization, handicrafts lost their original function as a means of earning a living and were able to establish themselves as a middle-class leisure activity. In the 1970s and 1980s, working with needle and thread was freed from its reputation as an edifying female occupation by artists such as Rosemarie Trockel and Alighiero e Boetti, who created subversive and political works. Handicrafts are also experiencing a sustained renaissance in contemporary art. The transgression of social and art-historical patterns of order plays a major role in this. Abstract or representational, art or craft, female or male – the not only textile positions in the exhibition subvert these categories and make new connections visible.