Web of
Europe

Concept 1
Concept 2
Mercury...
"Map"
Paraphrases
Exhibitions
Video spot
Sponsors
Links

Home
Contact
Copyright

The eighteenth-century Brussels tapestry
Mercury Hands Over the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs
before the collective work.

(with background)

Please, wait for the image to be loaded! Włodzimierz Cygan Martine Ghuys Federica Luzzi Thomas Cronenberg Maria Almanza Gabriela Cristu Sgarbura Anet Brusgaard Feliksas Jakubauskas Andrea Milde Maria Kirkova Tzanova Adél Czeglédi Muriel Crochet Susan Mowatt Gizella Solti Judit Nagy Ariadna Donner Peter Horn EMÖKE Paola Cicuttini Aino Kajaniemi Emese Csókás Sarah Perret Wanda Balogh Nora Chalmet Ieva Krumina Renata Rozsivalová Anne Jackson

CONTEMPORARY PARAPHRASES OF AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRUSSEL'S TAPESTRY


The idea for this joint work came from Marika Száraz, one of the curators of the Ildikó Dobrányi Foundation. Using the idea of a ‘time bridge’, she started out from the observation that for the reconstruction of an art object of the past that has come to light only as fragments, a basis is provided by those of its parts that have remained intact. As a practising tapestry artist, she imagined how contemporary artists, each representing his or her own weaving style according to his or her own thinking and technique, would replace missing parts of a classical Brussels tapestry, while making adjustments to their own methods on account of the subject-matter, form, and coloration of the original tapestry. Since in the present case the work in question was (fortunately) completely intact, when filling out the imaginary missing parts the artists, enriching the restorator’s compulsory care and exactness through the applying of imagination, were able to weave excerpts that to all intents and purposes could be put back in the original. The number of the parts artificially taken out, and the number of artists, refers to the number of member-states in the European Union. It has been our hope – and our expectations show every sign of being met – that among those in the genre – namely, individuals who are committed to it but who out of necessity work in isolation from one another – a dialogue will start up, and that long-term cooperation generated under the stimulating influence of joint work will serve to guarantee the survival of renewed European woven tapestry. (Katalin Schulcz: Web of Europe. In: Ibolya Hegyi, Katalin Schulcz (ed.): Web of Europe [catalogue], Ildikó Dobrányi Foundatiom, Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, 2011, 25.)