Olga de Amaral (b. 1932, Colombia) 

Lienzo 30, 2001 
Linen, gesso, and acrylic 

Olga de Amaral was one of the artists who revolutionized tapestry during the 1960s and promoted it as an art form of equal importance to that of painting or sculpture, is known for her recurrent use of gold. She first used gold in small works produced in 1975 titled Complete Fragments, but quickly expanded its use into large wall works and immersive installations. Her engagement with the material is tied to its symbolic uses within the Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Baroque contexts of her native Colombia, with her titles emphasizing its references to the sun. Silver is additionally prevalent within her practice, as a symbol of the moon.  

While celestial, landscape and ritual references appear in many of de Amaral’s titles, equally recurrent are notes on seriality, references that nod to her Post-Minimalist interests. This is the case with the two works included in the show, titled Lienzo 30 and Modular 77 (Agua 2), with the latter prominently displayed on the entrance wall. Lienzo 30 is made of densely layered threads of silver, lavender tones. These are held within a structure that can be displayed in two distinct ways. The first is flat, like a painting, the second suspended from the ceiling, allowing its threads to hang outward and vertically at different lengths, creating a more sculptural situation. The experimental nature of the artist’s practice is revealed in each artworks three-dimensionality, through which they seek a directly phenomenological relationship with the viewer’s body, an interaction not traditionally associated with weavings and tapestry.