7 February – 14 June 2026
With the exhibition Wool. Silk. Resistance., the Museum Angewandte Kunst dedicated itself exclusively to rugs, carpets, and tapestries for the first time in 45 years. This came at a time when interest in handmade textiles of all kinds was experiencing a resurgence, reflected in a striking number of international exhibitions.
Rather than approaching rugs, carpets, and tapestries from a stylistic or art-historical perspective, the exhibition presented them within a trajectory that exists outside established Western approaches to textile studies. The title introduced a series of questions: Can resistance be articulated through textile materials? And if so, in what ways do rugs, carpets, and tapestries express an “aesthetics of textile resistance”? The exhibition centered on the perspectives of international artists working in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, who engage with different dimensions of resistance through rugs, carpets, and tapestries understood as open and evolving art forms.
Producing art within sociopolitical contexts entails positioning oneself in relation to specific social realities. This also requires a clear stance toward the concept of resistance – a relational term – that defines against whom or what resistance is directed. In this exhibition, resistance was initially understood as an experience of difference that, through subjectivity, gives rise to a wide range of aesthetic and artistic forms of expression as well as a broad range of themes. Within the artistic and emancipatory reconfiguration of rugs, carpets, and tapestries, the exhibition addressed political opposition, resilience, and material or structural endurance in individual ways. Acts of resistance may be directed against perceived illegitimate systems of power, traditionalism, discrimination, racism, trauma, or environmental destruction.
The exhibition featured selected works by the following artists:
Faig Ahmed, Diedrick Brackens, Johannah Herr, Jan Kath, Alexandra Kehayoglou, William Kentridge, Baseera Khan, Noelle Mason, Otobong Nkanga, Tobias Rehberger, Erin M. Riley, Tsherin Sherpa, Rose Stach, Nasan Tur and Jeroen van den Bogaert.
Curator: Dr Katharina Weiler
The 37 artist carpets that were on display in the exhibition Wool. Silk. Resistance. were created in different ways, namely:
The various production methods and their meanings are therefore not only relevant to the respective art concepts, but also form their fundamental prerequisite and substance.
The (transcultural) negotiation processes involved in the creation of the artist-designed carpets in the exhibition, which were produced in collaboration between the artists and manufacturers using traditional craft techniques, reveal the sometimes profound relationships between the artists and communities of knitters or weavers. Thus, the works also embody an awareness of social standards in textile production. For example, the carpets were manufactured with consideration for transparent supply chains and appropriate remuneration (understood here as a relationship-dependent variable worldwide) for the artisans involved—even those works that do not have formal certification.
The exhibition was accompanied by the publication of the catalog Wool. Silk. Resistance.
Edited by Katharina Weiler and Matthias Wagner K.
With contributions by Caroline Achaintre, Eva Linhart, Teresa Minn, Leon Lukas Plum, Sofia Simeth, Matthias Wagner K and Katharina Weiler.
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König.
Design: Bureau Sandra Doeller
German / English
188 pages
Hardcover
24 × 32 cm
38 EUR
You can purchase the catalog at the ticket office of the Museum Angewandte Kunst.
How do we imagine museums in the future? What happens when people don’t go to the museum, but the museum comes to the people instead – with a mobile loom that symbolizes connection, communal creativity, and participation?
From February to May 2026, raumlaborberlin’s LOOMCYCLE traveled through Frankfurt’s neighborhoods. It stopped at places and events where people came together and new connections were formed. In community centers, marketplaces, and neighborhood festivals, we invited local actors and partner institutions to participate – to weave, engage in conversation, and experience design as a collaborative, democratic process. On the occasion of the International Museum’s Day, 17 May 2026, the carpet was detached from the loom and presented together with all partner institutions and with the initiator and artist Francesco Apuzzo (raumlaborberlin). The Museum Angewandte Kunst hosted a community picnic around the woven carpet in the Metzlerpark.
LOOMCYCLE is a project of the Berlin based collective raumlaborberlin and was part of the accompanying program to the exhibition Wool. Silk. Resistance. as well as part of the program of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026 at the Museum Angewandte Kunst.
