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Opening Lecture for Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mobilier national, Paris (65 Minutes)

Exhibition curator Kathleen Morris, Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions and curator of decorative arts, introduces Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mobilier national, Paris. Drawn from the celebrated collection of the Mobilier national from the 1940s to the present day, this exhibition explores the resurgence of the ancient French tradition of tapestry-making, including works by Henri Matisse, Sonia Delaunay, and Kiki Smith.

Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mobilier national, Paris Exhibition Lecture: Between Tradition and Experimentation: The Contemporary Creation of Tapestry (79 Minutes) 

The Mobilier national of France has supported crafts and creation since the seventeenth century. Since the 1930s, the national tapestry manufactories of Gobelins and Beauvais have been part of the Mobilier national, participating in the mid-twentieth century’s “renaissance” of tapestry. Since the 1960s, they have sought to bring together tapestry makers and artists, with projects specifically designed to be woven. Lucile Montagne, Chief Curator at the Mobilier national, presents a close look at this long tradition of the Gobelins and Beauvais factories, which remain faithful to the traditional technique on the loom while working with contemporary artists of all movements to create exciting new tapestries.

Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mobilier national, Paris Exhibition Lecture: Women of the French Tapestry Revival: Artists, Dealers, Weavers (62 Minutes) 

French tapestry weaving was traditionally an elite luxury craft practiced by men, who passed prestigious weaving positions down from father to son for generations. But as modernists began to revive French tapestry weaving in the twentieth century, women took on increasingly prominent roles in the field as artists, dealers, and weavers. This talk by Kay Wells explores how women worked in these and other roles to produce modern French tapestries, how they carved out new careers in this dramatically changing field, and how they transformed the look and feel of modern art. Kay Wells serves as Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of American Art and Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is the author of Weaving Modernism: Postwar Tapestry between Paris and New York (Yale University Press, 2019).

Wall Power! Modern French Tapestry from the Mobilier national, Paris Exhibition Lecture: A Conversation with Kiki Smith (66 Minutes) 

American artist Kiki Smith, whose large-scale tapestry Seven Seas is the latest work in the Wall Power! exhibition, joins exhibition curator Kathleen Morris in a conversation about how Smith, who has worked in a wide range of materials over her career, became engaged in the medium of tapestry. They also explore Smith's long-standing interest in using printmaking to realize work in other media.