1. Sheila Hicks, a little bit of a lot of things, installation view LOK by Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Photo: Stefan Altenburger © 2021, ProLitteris, Zürich
Sheila, the modern maker of fabric
Until the month of May, the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen/LOK present the works of the American born artist Sheila Hicks (Born in 1934 in Hastings, Nebraska).
While the artist is mostly known for her exploration of the textile medium since the 60s and 70s, the artist was influenced by her classes of paintings with the Bauhaus master Josef Albers at Yale University, and pre-Columbian weaving, which she got to know during a study trip to Chile.
In the LOK, the exhibition presents works from over sixty years of artistic creation, showcasing finish works and her process with knots, weaves and three-dimensional objects transformed with wool, linen and silk, some of them using neutral colours and others quite colourful.
2. Sheila Hicks, a little bit of a lot of things, installation view LOK by Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Photo: Stefan Altenburger © 2021, ProLitteris, Zürich
Sheila Hicks's biography
Sheila Hicks was born in 1934 in Hastings, Nebraska, the first of three siblings of her family. While her childhood was quite classical beside her family moving quite often, she finds her way quite easily in the art. Thus from 1954 to 1957 she's done an arts degree at the Syracuse University, before being accepted at the Yale University.
During her time at Yale, she attended the classes of the Bauhaus master Josef Albers, but also attends courses with Dr. George Kubler, who teaches the art of South America. During her studies, she experimented with painting and painted large-scale, abstract paintings.
After her studies, she decided to travel for three years to the South America, exploring Brazil, Uruguay, etc. While her trip was made possible by a Fulbright scholarship, her interested shifted from the use of paint to the techniques of Pre-Columbian textiles, especially the one in Bolivia.
Coming from this trip, she decided to leave the United States, and she settles in Paris for a painting scholarship, while starting experimenting with thread, string and ropes due to lack of money and materials.
In the 60s, her career started booming due to the purchase of small-scale works of the artist by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New-York. At the time she decided to stop painting and only create work with textiles, which will help her to be a textile designer for the design company Knoll International (as a freelancer).
But her reputation as an artist was growing and she received numerous invitations for exhibitions in museums of applied arts, which she gratefully declines with a few exceptions such as Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.
In 1965, the artist married the Chilean painter Enrique Zañartu, and on the same year their son Cristobal was born. On the same year, she started to create her large-format embroidered mural for the Ford Foundation in New York, which she finalised in 1967.
A few years later, Hicks founded the Huaquén Artisanal Workshop in Valparaíso, central Chile where she created a cooperative to provide an income for the local population while reviving and strengthening traditional crafts, that she used so much in her work. The same year, she presented her pieces during an incredible exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and later at the MoMA.
5 years later, Hicks come back to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for her first solo exhibition, in which the museums acquired several works.
In the late 70s, her career is booming and she invited to the Biennale de Lausanne in 1977, she created several large-scale works for King Saud University in Riyadh in 1982-1985, and she had numerous exhibitions in Europe and the United States until her biggest revelation to the public during the Venice Bienalle in 2017.
And NOW.
Now, the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen has decided to present an assemblage of her works coming from every period of their artist under the title "a little bit of a lot of things". While the exhibition is basically presented in one gigantic room in the LOK, an old Swiss rail infrastructure designed by Carl Moser which originally served for the maintenance of the steam locomotives, since 2008 the space is used by the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen.
And this exhibition clearly makes the most of out this space with the use of the high ceilings for the presentation of large scales pieces of the artist such as "La Mer", "To be titled" and smaller experimentation with natural materials such as shells.
Most of the works from the exhibition come from the artist itself, thus showcasing lesser-know works but also most personal experimentations.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue which will be published at a later stage.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: LOK - Kunstmuseum St.Gallen
Date: 4.2.2023 – 14.5.2023
Curators: Gianni Jetzer
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the LOK - Kunstmuseum St.Gallen
Grünbergstrasse 7
CH-9000 St.Gallen
Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 277 88 40
Fax: +41 61 226 33 61
Mail: lok@kunstmuseumsg.ch