A new exhibition at Halle Saint-Pierre in Paris is revolutionizing perceptions of textile art by showcasing 36 unconventional artists who masterfully wield thread, needle, and imagination. "The Fabric of Dreams" brings together creators who defy classification, bridging the gap between outsider art and contemporary art through extraordinary works that range from the marvelous to the macabre, from the erotic to the deepest melancholy.
The exhibition features an incredibly diverse collection including thread architectures, rag dolls, gigantic tapestries, and even photographs. These works create a uniquely rich journey that alternately surrounds visitors with skulls and bizarre dolls, disturbing them one moment before making them burst into laughter at quirky compositions that embrace and subvert kitsch aesthetics.
Textile art is currently experiencing tremendous popularity, with recent exhibitions dedicated to major figures like Sheila Hicks at the Quai Branly Museum and Magdalena Abakanowicz at the Bourdelle Museum. However, "The Fabric of Dreams" stands out from the first works in its path, appealing to unbridled imaginations that challenge, move, shake up, and frighten viewers. As exhibition directors Martine Lusardy of Halle Saint-Pierre and Clément Gaësler of the International Center for Surrealism explain, "This exhibition invites you to take textile art in reverse, choosing to see it from other angles. Through dialogue between surrealism and outsider art, we honor common ground of sensitivity."
The featured artists come from diverse backgrounds including comic books, photography, and contemporary art. More often, they are self-taught individuals working alone, sometimes in rural environments, and sometimes dealing with mental health challenges. Their techniques are as varied as their profiles, creating a fascinating tapestry of approaches and styles.
Anaïs Eychenne, born in 1984, immediately catches the eye in the first room with her ultra-fine drawings created using a small bamboo stylus dipped in ink on cotton canvases. Her works are teeming with details of mythological and animal creatures as mesmerizing as mandalas. Fabian Sanchez (1934-2020) assembled sewing machines to create strange metal creatures reminiscent of surrealist Hans Bellmer's sculptural dolls, while Therese Hächler (1950-2024) wielded patchwork with entirely geometric grace.
Nicolas Henry, born in 1978 and a collaborator of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, photographs "Our Grandparents' Huts," creating half-documentary, half-imaginary images that float models encountered around the world in entirely textile houses. Lili Simon, born in 1980, repurposes canvases found at flea markets and invites muscular male bodies, simply dressed in underwear, to appear before naive landscapes. This responds to a question she pondered during lockdown: "What does a woman really think when she embroiders hunting scenes or landscapes for hours, days, weeks?"
Textile art often synonymous with domestic conditions that are questioned, challenged, or even roughed up. Nothing remains of the patiently embroidered trousseaus of yesteryear—signs of young women's submission to marriage and patriarchy—in the work of Marie-Thérèse Chevalier (1939-2009). She sewed assertive vulvas and bouncing breasts, erotic works completed with a chair padded like female genitalia, on which sitting would take on very strong meaning, between sensual embrace and crushing.
While no longer confined to the domestic sphere, textile art often remains tinged with strong intimate charges, as seen in the fascinating compositions of Shao Liyu Chen, born in 1946. She brings back to life the traditional neighborhood of her childhood, spent in a vanished Beijing that she reanimates with small fabric scraps carefully cut into charming street scenes.
Several artists reinterpret the textile traditions of their countries of origin. Fascinated by carpets and kilims found in Tehran's bazaar, Iranian Alireza Asbahi Sisi, born in 1969, creates patchwork compositions that revisit very ancient craftsmanship. Others work with entirely personal obsessions, like Rita Arimont, born in 1967, whose sculptures are made from colored threads and jacket shoulder pads, with soft and malleable foam inspiring her to make it her favorite primary material.
Swiss artist Ficht Tanner, born in 1952, works as both musician and embroiderer, composing fascinating ballets of abstract and colorful forms that he directly connects to music and sound—reminiscent of Kandinsky and his exhibition at the Philharmonie, "The Music of Colors." His intricate embroideries with cotton threads create stunning visual symphonies measuring 190 x 180 cm.
The exhibition also confronts viewers with textile's relationship to mortality through some of the most terrifying works ever seen in an exhibition. Seven life-sized silhouettes, haunted and faceless, folded in on themselves like mummies, are gathered under the title "Solitude" by Belgian artist Micheline Jacques, born in 1933, and created from nylon and foam. Even more chilling are the 449 skulls and skeletons by Hervé Bohnert, born in 1967, which confront viewers with the sudden appearance of catacombs.
Bohnert's skeletal remains are covered with found fabrics and antique lace, which the artist brings back to life by making them participate in this face-to-face encounter with death, to better "defy forgetting," as the curators indicate. Textiles indeed follow us from birth to death—from the newborn's swaddling clothes to the final shroud, creating a profound meditation on the human condition through fabric and thread.
"The Fabric of Dreams" runs from September 12, 2025, to July 31, 2026, at Halle Saint-Pierre, located at 2 Rue Ronsard in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. The exhibition represents a unique collaboration between institutions and offers visitors an unprecedented journey through the most innovative and boundary-pushing textile art being created today.
