LMU's Laband Art Gallery Explores Textile And Fiber-Based Art With 'New Threads'

Los Angeles, CA /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - An exhibition of contemporary textile and fiber-based artwork, including a site-specific campus installation by the local arts collective Yarn Bombing Los Angeles, opens this week at Loyola Marymount University's Laband Art Gallery. "New Threads: Perspectives in Contemporary Fiber Art" begins with a reception from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 27, and runs through Saturday, March 17.

This winter exhibition, co-curated by Laband Art Director Karen Rapp and independent curator Sam Lee, showcases 18 local, national and international artists working in textile and fiber-based mediums in innovative ways. It is organized around three themes: technology as mediating force; the body and sexuality; and the re-contextualization of traditional forms.

"'New Threads' takes textile arts as its entry point and attempts to broaden our perceptions and expectations of artists who work in fiber. The show is very eclectic and ranges in scale, medium, and particularly in the diversity and length of artistic practices," Rapp said. "Many of the artists are critiquing the effects of our digitally driven world through fiber arts. I like the twist of employing timeless media like thread, yarn and rope to comment on the contemporary moment."

The participating artists are: Miyoshi Barosh, Chili Philly, Ben Cuevas, Lindsay Degen, Jasmine Delgado, Delicious Taste (Grant Levy-Doolittle and Bruce Yonemoto), James Gobel, Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Aubrey Longley-Cook, Mara Lonner, Diane Meyer, Jordan Nassar, Mark Newport, Robb Putnam, Erin M. Riley, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood and Margo Wolowiec.

Yarn Bombing Los Angeles, a local arts collective with worldwide networks, is planning an installation of knitted, crocheted, sewn, woven and other works in the George A.V. Dunning Courtyard, which is just outside the Laband Art Gallery in LMU's Burns Fine Arts Center.

"YBLA is 'taking over' our courtyard just outside the gallery; they will be expanding the physical impact of this exhibition so that anyone can enjoy it at any time," Rapp explained. "It makes sense to celebrate the intrinsic community-based affinities of the fiber arts by inviting YBLA and our own LMU knitting collective, 'Iggy's Yarnsters,' to lead art-making workshops in the courtyard during the run of the show. This is an opportunity for our students to be part of something humanizing IRL."

"New Threads" also serves as a welcome to the LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts' recently opened Mikos Makerspace, a new creative lab where studio art students can explore a range of techniques and methods for creating 2-D and 3-D artworks.

Free Public Programming
"New Threads" will offer several hands-on workshops, student-led tours and talks with artists. More information about the exhibition and its related programming can be found on the Laband's website, http://cfa.lmu.edu/labandgallery/.

About the Laband Art Gallery
The Laband Art Gallery opened in 1984 at Loyola Marymount University with a generous gift from Walter and Francine Laband and is a key component of the College of Communication and Fine Arts. Located in the Fritz B. Burns Fine Arts Center, the gallery enhances the cultural life at LMU with rich programming and exhibitions that are open to the campus community and the public. Admission is free. The Laband is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. More information can be found at http://cfa.lmu.edu/labandgallery/.

About Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University, the University of Silicon Beach®, is ranked in the top 12 percent of higher education institutions nationally by The Wall Street Journal. Founded in 1911, LMU is a Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount university with more than 6,100 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. LMU offers 58 undergraduate majors and 53 minor programs, along with 46 master's degree programs, one education doctorate, one juris doctorate, one doctorate of juridical science and 13 credential/authorization programs. LMU's intercollegiate athletics teams compete in the West Coast Conference with 22 Division I and varsity sports.

LMU news and events are found at: www.lmu.edu/news.