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Arts & Communication Textile agency in art

of the body, akin to a fold of fabric, anticipated her further and social fields, reinforcing the relational aspect of her
observations and reflections on the pleated, rippling, work. Žaltauskaitė Grašienė’s installation “Total Equality”
broken, and wrinkled draperies that are characteristic of (2011) (Figure 2), created in collaboration with artist
the artist‘s work. Fabric, often described as a “second skin,” Bronė Neverdauskienė and curator Ignas Kazakevičius,
is one of the important components of the textile discourse offers an inverse version of the interpretation of the
that has wovenits way into Žaltė’s oeuvre. body, presenting the body’s slough as a constructed
Textiles are related to the tactile sensations evoked by social image. However, in this artwork, the individual
skin receptors. It is a special field of sensibility. The skin is self disappears within a faceless crowd, modeled not
also one of the most important sensory organs, marking by biological but by sociocultural systems and daily
the boundary of the collision between inside and outside, practices, their used images, and stereotypes. The body
signifying the body’s fusion with the world, and at the same settles down and outstays in a shell, to which labels are
time acting as a veil, a hood, and a covering. According to sewn. A closer look at the headless figures comprising the
Serres, the whole environment around us, the whole world, installation reveals that each creeper suit-shaped “slough”
is a living organism – a body covered with skin, comprising a is individualized by an informative label sewn on the inside
multitude of interwoven tissues in which it is difficult to see (“Victoria. 3.5 months. Bitch. Tennis champion,” “Dorothy.
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the boundary between inside and outside . The ornamental 2.5 months. Housewife,” “Victor. 7 months. Crazy genius,
surface of the skin is, therefore, also an infinite depth. inventor of weapons,” etc.).
The artist has made the surface of the body, its organic The viewers were also invited to put labels on the
textuality, and sensuality the fundamental theme of her impersonal figures in the exhibitions, reflecting on
work. It reveals the expressive tactility of the physical body, the process of sorting and “labeling” people, a process
which is inseparable from direct sensory experiences. that turns the figures into individualized objects. The
Sensuality refers to the textile nature of the corporeal installation evoked various sociopolitical associations,
subject, emphasizing identity, which appears in an referring to changing forms of totalitarianism and everyday
individualized form but dissolves into pure physiology practices of disciplining the body. According to art critic
in the body’s corporeality and its texture. The landscapes Laima Kreivytė, the faceless human torsos resemble stuffed
of body skin and hair, which transfer the image from animals that have no entrails. As she puts it, “On the one
photographs to fabric, also resonate with the metaphorical hand, this means that our outer shell is also our inner shell.
concept of the “skin ego” by the French psychoanalyst Didier On the other hand, emptiness refers to the “body without
Anzieu (the individual as skin). This concept describes organs” described by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
the skin as a psychic shell enveloping the inner fabric of The body without organs is precisely what remains after
(sub)consciousness, enmeshing it into an inter subjective the fantasies have been disposed of, an image that is the
tangle . In the intimate cycles of “Skin Paintings” and opposite of psychoanalysis” .
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[10]
“Portraits,” the “Patterns” of the physical body appear The installation also engaged in a dialogue with other
to transform into an amorphous matter, serving as the well-known artworks. One could claim that it has links
foundation of individual existence in which subjectivity with the sculptural installations of the contemporary textile
dissipates. The clear boundary between the body and the classicist Magdalena Abakanowicz, where the individuality
world, individuality, and anonymity, disappear.
of the headless figures also disappears and shows up in the
The intersection of dualities has inspired the artist for anonymous crowd. It also bears a resemblance to the works
other projects, which she realized not only in galleries of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski,
but also in public spaces. The project “Breathing” (2010), and others, where the garment serves not only the outer
implemented at the Gynecology Clinic, touches on the shell but also a “second skin” that directly expresses the
theme of birth and the first contact with the world. The experiences of the body and consciousness, marking the
artist recorded the birth of children with a camera and boundaries of identity and memory, life, and death. In
turned the photographs into fabrics, highlighting the some respects, it is also reminiscent of Vanessa Beecroft’s
textile character of life that begins with the breath. Woven installations and performances, which reflect on the
photographs, which embody a sensory contact with the current cult of the body and the sophisticated forms of
world, have been exhibited in various exhibitions (Kaunas consumption of the female body.
Biennale Textile’11, among others) and remain as a
meaningful artistic trace in the clinic. 3. Between folds
The sensing gaze and tactility continued to lead the The fold covers what lies in between, symbolizing the
artist to search for common ground between the artistic limitless, the constant becoming, and the ongoing reiteration

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1867