It was very much a family affair at Camden Arts Centre on Saturday (18 June) when the celebrated London-based fashion designer Duro Olowu was interviewed by his wife, Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, about the exhibition he has just organised at Camden. Joking that “we don’t see enough of each other,” Golden revealed that the busy transatlantic couple had barely discussed the exhibition. She was as curious as the rest of us to understand his thinking behind the show.
What then unfolded was a rich and revealing account of Making and Unmaking (until 18 September), Olowu’s show of paintings, photographs, sculpture, ceramics, tapestries and fabrics by more than 60 artists. Those featured range from Anni Albers and Fernand Léger to Claude Cahun and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye—whose remark to artist Glenn Ligon apparently gave the show its title.
Although it takes fabric and textiles as its starting point, the exhibition addresses a multitude of themes, including portraiture, gender and sexuality. Olowu was keen to stress it was “not just about artists who use textiles; it’s about seeing an artist’s process”.
At the same time Olowu spoke of his deep love of textiles and the profound possibilities of clothes “from baroque to Yoruba to haute couture”. He revealed that from childhood he had always “insisted on wearing things with an interesting pattern” and continued to revel in seeing “something flat come to life”.
We also learned something of the Olowu-Golden ménage. Olowu’s “I’m not a hoarder but I can’t resist a good thing!” approach contrasted with his wife’s more minimal tastes: “I’m not a collector—Olowu was surprised at my apartment’s bare white walls!” Judging by the warmth and animation of the conversation, these contrasting characteristics evidently co-exist in lively harmony.
Once the talk was over, the tantalised audience got its first view of the exhibition. The consensus was that all of its often very different components—from the steely formality of Meredith Frampton’s 1920s oil portrait of Winifred Frampton to Wangechi Mutu’s blooming sculpture made from bunched red knickers—also converse and combine in ways that are dramatically, thought-provokingly and sometimes unexpectedly complementary.