Museums get a lot of attention for the art they collect, but less so for the art they conserve. And conservation is, arguably, the most important, expensive and relentless part of the work they do.
Each time a museum adds a piece to its holdings, it also increases its responsibility to store, maintain and show the object to its audiences — for perpetuity. The task only grows as collections expand. Maintenance and storage take up a significant portion of every institution’s budget.
But, every once in a while, an exhibition shows up that demonstrates to museum visitors just how valuable that work is. That is the case with the Denver Art Museum’s “Weaving a Foundation: Cornerstones of the Textile Arts Collection.”
The show is built around 60 works, all part of DAM’s permanent collection, and many are treasures that the public knows little about. About two-thirds of the textiles have never been exhibited in Denver before.
The show is a tribute, of sorts, to the Douglas family of Evergreen who, over two generations, collected scores of textiles — many made through Indigenous traditions across the globe — and donated them to the museum over 50 years, starting in the 1920s.
The objects do have a common thread beyond the Douglas clan, and that, of course, is thread itself and the way it is manipulated into precious fabrics through sewing, weaving, embroidery and dying — or often, a combination of those techniques.
That said, works come in multiple forms and from a world of producers over the past 200 or so years. That includes rugs, blankets, coverlets, clothing and ceremonial objects from diverse locales such as the American Southwest, Mexico, India, Pakistan and the Indonesian islands of Bali, Java and Sumatra.
Each piece is refined, masterful and delicate — very delicate, by the nature of its very fragile core materials — and that barely shows at all in this exhibition. Hanging on the walls, suspended from ceilings and placed precisely on mannequins, the exhibit is pristine and elegant and a testimony to the excellent stewardship that DAM now shows to holdings like this.
The museum’s conservation department was officially established in 1991, and its duties are varied. It not only preserves objects from across all of DAM’s collections, it also oversees restoration and the prevention of damage in the future. Important aspects of museum operations — from climate control in the galleries to the way things are shipped when they go on loan to other institutions — are all part of the conservation effort.
There are, for those interested, numerous case studies highlighted on DAM’s website, showing how it preserves everything from marble statues to paper maps. The job requires deep knowledge of art and craft across endless media and cultures.
That is clear with “Weaving a Foundation: Cornerstones of the Textile Arts Collection,” where the objects have varied origins.
There are, for example, many pieces produced by Indigenous artists in what is now the United States. For example, a rain sash made from braided cotton by a Hopi artist in the 1900s; a woven, wool blanket by a Diné maker, dated from around the late 1800s; and a wool rug from another Diné textile artist, maybe from 1875.
Notable is the fact that many of the objects have imprecise origins, the signage often lacks specific dates and the names of the people who created the work. That is the way it goes with textiles: Many of these objects were made for everyday use — rather than as pieces of art — and there are limited records on their backgrounds. Curators piece things together as they can.
That leaves a lot of generalities on the table. One bright, red geometric textile is simply labeled “Quilt, United States, About 1830.” It inspires the imagination even if it does not answer basic questions.
There is also a piece labeled “Serape, Mexico, About 1860-75.” Mexico, of course, is a big country, and that leaves the work shrouded in mystery. We do learn from the signage something about its place in history, that it was made during “the short reign of Emperor Maximillian (1864-67), who was placed on the throne by Napoleon Ill of France.”
But the exhibition is satisfying in the way it ties together the varied products and purposes of textiles from different cultures. That allows the show to include articles of clothing, such as leather and beadwork moccasins made by Cheyenne artists in the 1960s. and a deer skin poncho and skirt produced by a Mescalero Apache artist in the 1920s.
That diversity expands globally. The show is broad enough to include a cotton and wool room divider, made in Armenia in the 1800s; a silk overskirt from Bali from the early 1900s; and a cotton and silk headdress, decorated with metallic thread, from Sumatra, that was produced in the early 1900s.
Despite its showy treasures, “Weaving a Foundation” is an understated exhibition. The lights are low to protect the goods and the works are edited down to what is crucial, allowing the display to feel spread out and leisurely.
But, as a whole, it carries considerable weight for visitors, especially locals. The show underscores just how important DAM’s textile collection is, and all that it takes to maintain it.
There is, under all those blankets and rugs, clear evidence that the museum’s Textile and Fashion department is doing the hard work of research, curation and exhibition design that make civic institutions like DAM dependable, and crucial to the cultural life of a community.
Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Denver-based freelancer specializing in fine arts.
IF YOU GO
“Weaving a Foundation: Cornerstones of the Textile Arts Collection,” continues through Jan. 5 at the Denver Art Museum. Info: 720-865-5000 or denverartmuseum.org.
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