TRADITIONAL TEXTILES
from INDIA and INDONESIA

Among the things that make humans human, textiles are one of the most important. Human life and culture are unimaginable without them. Fabric and cloth cover and adorn our bodies. They brighten austere rituals. They divide rooms. They become bedding. They are used to transport things, to wrap things, and to offer things. Textiles have at times been even used as currency. Among the abundant corpus of textiles, some have been carefully handed down as family treasures from generation to generation over hundreds of years. This exhibition displays and offers precious Indian and Indonesian textiles from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

“Maa India”, ceremonial cloth
cotton, wooden block printed and painted mordant, resist dyed
Gujarat India, traded to Trajan market
South Sulawesi region, late 18th century

The joy of old textiles is endless. We will offer for purchase a multitude of antique textiles, in the very shapes they have been handed down through the centuries. We have additionally prepared a wide range of small products made from old textiles: tea-related things such as kobukusa (cloth for presenting the tea bowl), business-card holders, patchwork cuts of small samples, and much more—small things that let us enjoy the beauty of old textiles in daily life.

“Ikek Pinggang”, woman’s ceremonial waist belt
cotton, hemp, gold or silver wrapped thread
supplementary weft weave
Bali, late 19th century

“Selendang”, ceremonial shoulder cloth
silk, weft ikat
Singaraja, Bali, late 19th century

GALLERY TALK
13 July 2019 14:00 – 15:00
Free entry / No reservation required

‘Asian Textiles Time’
Nobuko HIROI  (Artist / Textile Researcher)

The first foreign country I visited was India. Sarasa, embroidery, wild silk, kasuri-weaving, shibori-dyeing… Fascinated by the astonishing variety and richness of textiles and their equally rich history, I made three more trips to India after 1974, traveling around there by train and bus. After that I was shown batik and double kasuri-weaving firsthand in Indonesia. Since long ago a lot of these cloths and textiles have hopped from island to island, making their way to Japan in the far east of Asia. People and textiles meet, jumping over place and time. I would like to spend some time in Asia with you, while we stroke the displayed fabrics and textiles with our eyes.

“Kain batik Perada“, ceremonial skirt cloth
cotton, batik, gold leaf gluework
Bali, late 19th century