Who does not know the thread of life, the golden thread? Who is not interwoven with others? We encounter threads in myths, language use, and also in art, where they are often used as metaphors, models, or mediums. Therefore, this exhibition thematically explores the symbolic meanings of thread for people and human life.

THREADS thus brings together works by contemporary women artists, along with exemplary spinning and weaving utensils, and graphics with motifs from select Greco-Roman myths. These works, deliberately gathered from different contexts and categories, are “interlaced” in such a way that they offer visitors—to continue this train of thought—numerous connecting threads, enabling them to engage with the use and meaning of thread as a symbol of personal and social narratives. Conceptual and associative spaces open up between the poles of fate and responsibility, trust and skepticism, individuality and collectivity, and power and powerlessness. The exhibition thus builds bridges from antiquity through the present into a possible tomorrow.

Illustration:
Rosa Loy, Drei Strickerinnen 2018
Watercolour on paper
© Rosa Loy, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023, Courtesy Galerie Kleindienst, Leipzig/Hendrik Hemke, Neuss (photo: Uwe Walter, Berlin)  

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Louise Bourgeois, Jeongmoon Choi, Alphonse-Victor Colas, Vincenz Grüner, Eva Hesse, Maria Lai, Rosa Loy, Cesare Nebbia, Vanessa Oppenhoff, Crispijn van der Passe, Antonio Tempesta, Rosemarie Trockel, Heike Weber