San Francisco’s De Young Museum has just opened a splendid little exhibition of selections from their tremendous collection of world textiles, entitled To Dye For: A World Saturated in Color. It focuses on various techniques used around the world to imbue plain thread with pure colour, including tie-dye, ikat, and batik. A number of important Indonesian textiles are included in the exhibition, which runs until mid-January 2011. Sadly, the De Young’s website offers little in the way of imagery or information about the textiles in this show. The site is, overall, disappointing in comparison to the websites of other museums around the world. This seems especially peculiar given that the De Young is located in a city that’s famous for tech supremacy and creativity. Go figure.
There's a special Rug & Textile Evening at the De Young to view this exhibition, this Friday, 15 October 5 to 7pm. It's a joint fund-raiser organized by the Antique Rug & Textile Arts Association and the Department of Textile Arts at the de Young. Includes a private showing of 10 rarely seen specially selected pieces from the museum collection as well as a viewing of the Textile Department's current show. Admission is $40 ($25 for members of the De Young's Textile Arts Council, Art Museums of San Francisco and ARTAA). RSVP - benbanayan@hotmail.com