Breaking Tradition: Later 20th Century Malian Wedding Texttiles

Steve Turner is pleased to present Breaking Tradition: Late 20th Century Malian Wedding Textiles, an exhibition featuring eight brightly colored strip-woven, figurative textiles that, to our knowledge, is the first exhibition to focus solely on the subject. Representing a dramatic break with this centuries old tradition in Mali which historically favored indigo and white cotton or brown wool blankets, these works present a new approach to the genre of wedding textiles. Depicting people and animals, they were used to adorn the walls of houses during weddings and as covers for the newly imported iron beds. Following the 1968 military coup, soldiers also became a prevalent theme. Similar works have been included in overview exhibitions of African textiles, including the often-cited exhibition Art of African Textiles, ( Barbican Art Gallery, 1995), which featured one of the artists included here, Oumar Boucoum.

Three weavings by Boucoum, member of the second generation of Fulani wedding weavers, are presented in Breaking Tradition. Strong examples by five other weavers reveal that the movement was more widespread than previously thought and that more scholarship is necessary. Little is known about the weavers beyond the fact all were men and that all were members of “Maabo,” the Fulani caste of griots and praise singers.

In presenting the first survey of Malian wedding textiles, we acknowledge the inspiration of two New York galleries, Julien Levy Gallery (1931-1949), and Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery (1926-1968). Both of these galleries were pioneers in exhibiting contemporary art along with folk art, as does Steve Turner.