Threads of Dissent

The "Threads of Dissent" tapestry exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Oct. 22,1999-Jan. 30, 2000) is either a contradiction in terms or a play on words. The show brings together modern tapestries by six contemporary artists--Murray Walker, Lilian Tyrrell, Leon Golub, Edward Derwent, Wojciech Jaskolka, and Jorge Pardo--who use the antiquated medium of tapestry-making as a vehicle for social commentary. Although criticisms of modern society is touted as the exhibition's concept, the show in reality places more emphasis on 'descent' rather than 'dissent'--more preoccupied with showcasing the at times overly-forced geneology connecting these modern tapestries with the magnificent tapestries in the permanent Gardner collection.

Even when contemporaneous social discord appears as the central theme of older tapestries, they nevertheless reference older mythologies. But in the modern tapestries, this level of nuance cannot be had. As in much of contemporary art , the loss of the security of establishment is compensated by either consummate abstraction or fumblings for transcendent beauty.

And these are the exact qualities of the two most successful modern pieces in the exhibition. Jorge Pardo's untitled tapestry, one of three industrially fabricated in a Dutch factory, is by strict definitions a rug. Pardo also commissioned tapestries from a workshop in Mexico in where the weaving was done by hand but both techniques are given equal artistic creedance.

But perhaps the most stunning piece was Edward Derwent's Dante's Inferno (1986). Although loosely based on Dante's allegory, the tapestry, a scintillating combination of glass beads and nylon thread, challenging the very medium of tapestry.

But one or two good pieces out of six is not the best batting average. Perhaps the best approach to "Threads of Dissent" is not to focus on the pieces themselves, but to trace the descent of tapestry-making from the magnificent Gardner collection to its modern incarnations.