In the medieval era, tapestry was the pre-eminent visual art form. Lavish, expansive and expensive, it was the medium of choice for the powerful to display their wealth and tell their version of history. By the modern period, tapestry had lost its position, deemed of little importance compared to painting, and for centuries textiles languished on the sidelines of fine art.
In the 1960s, textile art was rediscovered as artists began to explore and exploit its potential for dissent. They saw that the familiar, quotidian qualities of textiles – the very qualities for which they had been dismissed ...
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