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film polyester thread
Currently on view at Mint Museum--UPTOWN
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by the Founders' Circle Ltd. in honor of Fleur Bresler
In Quilt Film Quilt, Sabrina Gschwandtner pairs the centuries-old craft of quilting with the near-obsolete medium of celluloid film to draw connections between these seemingly disparate practices. Strips of film arranged into the traditional Log Cabin quilt pattern are displayed on a light box. Recalling a stained-glass window, the colors and patterns draw the viewer in, prompting closer examination of the images in each frame of film. The artist constructs her film quilts from a collection of 16 mm films dating between 1950 and 1980, de-accessioned by the Fashion Institute of Technology and given to her by Anthology Film Archives. The films are documentaries about textiles as art, craft, fashion, military camouflage, political expression, and scientific metaphor. This particular quilt is made from the 1987 film Hearts and Hands: 19th Century Women and Their Quilts. Images of hands working with fabric recur throughout the quilt, creating a dialogue between the quilt as a tangible object and the imagery within it, and between the histories of cinema and quilting. Early in cinema’s history, cameras were constructed from modified sewing machine parts, and women were hired as editors for their agile sewing fingers. As the artist has said, her quilts “relate film to the sphere of activity that’s been called ‘women’s work,’ and relate film editing to a form of handcraft.” Gschwandtner holds a BA with honors in art and semiotics from Brown University and an MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the RISD Museum, and the Philbrook Museum.
Accession Number: 2016.42
Measurements:
Copyright Information:
NEPL Mint signed nonexclusive license with artist representative 2016
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