Spun: Adventures in Textiles

Denver Art Museum

Through Sept. 22

Curators in Denver are pioneering a solution to one of the great challenges museums everywhere are facing, said Judith H. Dobrzynski in The New York Times. This summer, the Denver Art Museum’s sprawling current show on textile art is lifting a remarkable permanent collection out of relative obscurity by putting it at the center of a blockbuster exhibition. Like the museum’s popular 2011 show on ceramic art, “Spun” mixes ancient artifacts with contemporary art in a bid to encourage visitors to see all the works in new ways. “For those of us who consider museum-going a competitive sport,” the prospect of wandering through 10 linked exhibits in two separate buildings feels like a dare, said Ray Mark Rinaldi in The Denver Post. Fortunately, “they are a diverse lot of shows”—featuring such highlights as a “fabulously ornate” 500-year-old tunic from Peru, “cheeky prints from the 1960s,” and a woven-rug portrait by Chuck Close.

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In the anchor exhibit—a greatest-hits selection from the museum’s textile collection—“every piece is a gem,” said Michael Paglia in Westword. Among the pieces “not to be missed” are dazzling Roman Catholic vestments from 19th-century France and a traditional Japanese fireman’s coat with an elaborately ornamental quilted lining. Elsewhere, Colorado artist Bruce Price presents abstract works on paper that he creates by cutting, tearing, and assembling patches of gingham and plaid. Nearby, other masters of abstraction are celebrated in a series of Navajo blankets from 1840 to 1870, a period of peak creativity. Though the blankets were made to be worn, not displayed like banners, the pieces here use color and pattern so boldly that each feels like the work of a gifted artist. Hung several courses high in a soaring new gallery, they create an effect “something like a cross between a canyon and a cathedral.”